The new IKEA store in Santiago de Chile.
The Swedish firm specialized in decoration and design IKEA arrives in South America and has chosen Chile for its premiere in the region.
In a long-awaited landing by Chilean consumers –despite the economic situation, marked by an annual inflation of 12.5%–, the store will open on August 10 in a space of more than 15,300 meters that will incorporate a furniture exhibition , supervised children's play area, a restaurant and a bistro with typical Swedish food and a market with Nordic foods.
It will be located in the Open Kennedy
shopping center
–in the municipality of Las Condes, next to the classic Parque Arauco, in the eastern part of the capital–, where it is already possible to see the traditional IKEA logo on a blue background with yellow letters.
The details of the store have been revealed by drops to maintain the expectation of potential consumers, but IKEA points, again, "at a price accessible to most people."
“When you visit IKEA stores, we want you to feel at home and for this, we will offer a complete experience, which invites you to try, touch and feel our products.
In addition, you will be able to explore and be inspired by our home decoration ideas”, explains Marita Marante, Manager of Operations and Customer Experience at IKEA Chile, Colombia and Peru, the other two countries in the region where the company will land soon.
The first IKEA campus in Chile will follow the same logic that all the company's stores in the world have, they have revealed in the firm, that in the second semester it will open the second store in Santiago de Chile, but at the other end of the city: in the MallPlaza Oeste shopping center, in the municipality of Cerrillos, which will have 25,000 square meters.
In the premises of Las Condes, 8,700 square meters will be sales area.
In the furniture showroom you can see different styles and decorations designed for the different spaces of the home, recreating real rooms.
There will be a children's area – dedicated to toys, stuffed animals and children's decoration – and a room focused on deco-home products.
As happens every time IKEA arrives in a country, the firm does a preliminary study to find out about the local reality and ways of living.
In the case of Chile, one of the issues they found was organization in different areas of the home.
On the other hand, they found the tendency to live in smaller spaces.
As many visits by the IKEA team were made to families with children, they all agreed that the main frustration is the organization of the toys.
"These and other habits were studied in order to select those that best suit the lives of our customers in Chile," the company said in a statement.
Founded in Sweden in 1943, it has more than 400 stores in 50 markets around the world.
"We have been preparing all the details for the opening of our first store in the region for some time and we are very excited," says Francisco Errázuriz, Regional Retail Manager of IKEA Chile, Colombia and Peru.
IKEA has defined its landing in Chile as "a very important milestone for the company".
The firm has also announced that the first IKEA store in Colombia will open in Bogotá in 2023 and that it will launch a collection next year that will highlight the unique culture and traditions of each country.
To do this, he joined nine Latino artists and designers, including four Chileans: designers Trini Guzmán and Abel Cárcamo, architect Felipe Assadi, and ceramist Catalina Zahri.
The first shipments of products to supply the IKEA store began to arrive in Chile in October 2021. They come mainly from Barcelona, Spain, where products from more than 20 European countries are consolidated.
And on average, each shipment takes 12 weeks to arrive at Chilean ports.
The firm of Swedish origin will use the logistics capabilities of the Falabella group in Chile, such as 50 distribution and transfer centers.
In turn, you will have your more than 260 points for withdrawal of electronic purchases.
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