Online delivery in Gurugram next year, offline store in 2: IKEA India CEO

Pulverer said that IKEA is also working on increasing sourcing from India, which currently stands at 30%

Ikea will start delivering goods online in Gurugram next year, and the offline store will open in two years, Susanne Pulverer, its India chief executive officer (CEO), told Business Standard on Wednesday. With this, Gurugram will become the first serviceable location in North India for the Swedish furniture retailer.

Currently, it delivers products in Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Vadodara.

On the sidelines of the 27th World Investment Conference (WIC) in New Delhi, Pulverer said, "For Gurugram, we will give an exact timeline soon. But we are looking to open the offline store within the next two years and online sales in the next one year."

Earlier, the company announced the setting up of two stores in Delhi-NCR with an investment of around Rs 10,500 crore. Currently, it has five stores in India.

For the other store IKEA plans to open in the NCR, in Noida, Pulverer said they have not set a particular timeline yet as it is "much bigger" than the one in Gurugram.

Talking about online delivery, Pulverer said that the company is looking to expand e-commerce, but currently, it will only be around the areas where the stores are present or are planned.

"The expansion will be connected to where we have fulfilment. The long distribution will be negative for the customer experience. We do it together with offline presence," she said.

Pulverer said that IKEA is also working on increasing sourcing from India. "It makes a lot of sense for many reasons. One is more active in society; the other is closer to the supply."

She also added that there is also a possibility for India to become an export hub for the company. Pulverer, however, did not mention the quantum of the targeted increase. Currently, the company locally sources around 30 per cent of its products for the Indian market.

Pulverer added that India is among the company's top priority markets.