Ikea Pulls Plans for Somerville Store

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

At this point, I'm not too surprised, but the official word was given to the city today.

http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2012/07/19/ikea-pulls-plan-for-somerville-store/PfHS9vViEaT8p5rcBmWuxO/story.html

Comments

[wardv.livejournal.com]

Ikea needs to hire some new market research people, I think. Maybe some that do not live in suburbia. Ikea has no clue how much (student) business they are missing out on by only have one store in Massachusetts, reachable by car only.

Then again, given how completely incompetently they run their online business, I can't say I'm entirely surprised that they do not understand the (young) urban demographic.

[avjudge]

My thoughts, too. Not just only reachable by car, but only reachable from the NE by going through Boston - maybe I'm not typical, but I just don't do that unless I have a good reason. So instead of dropping in every few weeks, I'll continue just visiting Ikea once or twice a year.

ETA, Friday night: and I just went down today, stayed a little longer than planned (into the evening rush), and took over an hour & a quarter to get back - that's why I only go down when there's something I can't resist! (In this case, a looming return deadline.)

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

They know exactly how much student business they're losing: none. Students use the Internet to buy cheap furniture.

[wardv.livejournal.com]

You're wrong. You have never been to the Somerville Target in September/October. Of course students would shop at Ikea, if only they could get there. Oh, and IKEA sells a lot more than just furniture...

My point is more general - IKEA USA does not understand urban markets.

When they opened the Stoughton store in November 2005, they had underestimated demand so badly that they had nothing in stock for several weeks . One would go to Ikea, select the things desired upstairs, only to come downstairs and find out that most things had been sold out, and were not due for restocking for weeks. It was a big joke.

As for the argument that "one IKEA for Massachusetts is enough" - give me a break. Massachusetts has 6.5 million inhabitants. The only store is reachable by car.

Compare with a small country in Europe, about the size of Massachusetts (but with 10 million inhabitants):

http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_AU/about_ikea/facts_and_figures/ikea_group_stores/belgium.html

Six stores. Most reachable by public transit.

Now tell me again that IKEA USA knows what they are doing?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have. I have also been a student recently. If they want to buy furniture from IKEA, they will go to the website. If they don't they'll go to Target.

I understand that you very much want an IKEA because their plastic shit is somehow better to you than the many other purveyors of plastic shit. But it's just a store.

[wardv.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have. I have also been a student recently. If they want to buy furniture from IKEA, they will go to the website. If they don't they'll go to Target.


Maybe they've improved their website... If they haven't, I hope those students have a lot of patience and a high tolerance for mismatched furniture. Oh, and an outsize shipping budget.

When I last tried to order something from there (in 2009?) it was pretty darn ridiculous. Specifically: they run their website as a separate 'store'. With very limited inventory. That means you couldn't find, say, matched sets of furniture. They would have one item only in white finish, another from the same series only in maple, and a third only in birch.

The checkout process was the most ridiculous though. They have (had?) no online shipping cost calculation. So what you would do is click the "yes I want to buy this" button, put in all your info including payment information (!) and then get to a page that said "we'll get back to you with the shipping cost".

And then... nothing.

It took them two weeks to send me an e-mail that said, oh, yeah, this will cost XXX to ship to you. Needless to say shipping was expensive, too. By that time I'd obviously long acquired whatever it was that I had tried to order at their online store, so they lost that sale.

I understand that you very much want an IKEA because their plastic shit is somehow better to you than the many other purveyors of plastic shit. But it's just a store.

Please don't put words in my mouth, that's not cool.

All I am doing here is observing that in my opinion, IKEA USA is poorly run and has no understanding of the (young) urban demographic. That lack of understanding lead them to pull out of the Assembly Square project. I think that is a stupid decision on their part, but whatever. Something else will move in. As someone else said in this branch, a Wegmans would be nice...