last year, IKEA announced that it would invest 1 billion yuan in China market, including the newly unveiled city center store this year, in order to meet the new demands of consumers for leisure and experience.

On the weekend afternoon, every corner of IKEA's newly opened Jing 'an City Store in Shanghai was crowded with customers. Some young lovers sought inspiration in the model room, some took their children to spend time in the activity area, and some waited patiently for Swedish meatballs. This is a new branch opened by IKEA in July this year, which is different from all the previous stores. It is located in the center of Shanghai, only one intersection away from Jing 'an Temple, and there are high-end office buildings and shopping centers nearby. It's smaller and more convenient. You don't need to spend a lot of time, you can just browse around. Taking shopping at home stores as a daily pastime is a new demand brought by the new consumption pattern. In addition to the immediate needs of the decoration crowd, home stores have begun to cater to the more needs of consumers, and opening a store in the city center is a key step for this.

in the format distribution system of IKEA, the most familiar one is the large and far warehouse hypermarket. This kind of standard shops are generally opened in remote places, with large area and large capacity. Consumers often need to set aside half a day or even a whole day to complete a shopping. Different from other categories, household consumer goods, especially furniture in large quantities, have low consumption frequency, and are generally concentrated in the decoration period, buying new houses or renovating old houses. In addition, few people think of visiting home stores. Next to IKEA's Beicai branch in Shanghai is Red Star Macalline, two large-scale stores covering various styles of household products. Consumers with decoration needs spend a whole day here, and they can roughly outline the portraits in their hearts. Therefore, in the traditional retail format, consumers who enter home stores are basically just in need, otherwise, precious leisure time will not be consumed here.

With the new retail wave coming, the function of offline stores began to transform from a single retail to an exhibition center with a sense of experience. This wave of transformation has also swept the home furnishing industry. Slowly, consumers go to the home store, in addition to the previous just-needed consumption, but also have a variety of divergent purposes. From the hard indicators that have to be visited to the light consumption of multiple times, home shopping centers have also begun to change with the trend. From display to site selection, all changes are made to make it easier for customers to enter the store. Only when you come in can you talk about the conversion rate.

Because of the particularity of furniture, consumers are always cautious when buying, and it needs to be confirmed repeatedly from style to material to size. So running back and forth several times is a normal process. In a big city like Beishangguangshen and Shenzhen, large-angle mobilization is a physical activity, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Although IKEA has five stores in Shanghai, it still can't cover more demand.