'Hello Philippines, we are IKEA'
Know the online best-sellers, physical store set to open later this year
Manila: IKEA’s first-ever store in the Philippines, touted as the world's biggest, is yet to open. But its online shop is already taking and delivering customers' orders 24/7.
The physical IKEA store in Pasay City, a district of Manila, is still in the works, and is slated to open "later this year". The much-awaited launch has been postponed by pandemic-driven curbs. Now, the online outlet is open following a successful test run, a store official said.
“After several weeks of learning from our test-run, we are glad that we are now accessible to more Filipinos,” IKEA Pasay City’s store manager Georg Platzer told local media. “We are very excited to be part of the lives of the many people in the Philippines and share in their dreams of a better life at home.”
IKEA Manila
When the physical store opens, IKEA Manila is touted as the company's biggest store in the world, measuring 65,000 square-meters (700,000 square feet), the size of 150 basketball courts. It will be located at the Mall of Asia Complex in the Manila Bay Area.
The Swedish furniture retail giant is pressing on in Asia. For its Manila store, IKEA has said it will spend an initial 7 billion pesos ($134 million) to build, stock, and staff the store, which will carry 9,000 products.
In September, IKEA kicked off an online pilot test with a limited number of goods for their Philippine customers. The dry run was done to ensure a smooth operations and customer experience.
Some of IKEA Manila's best sellers during online pilot test:
How to shop online
Just create an IKEA account (this is apart from the IKEA Family membership information) then proceed to shop, add to cart, then check out.
Payment options include:
Delivery options
The are three delivery options:
IKEA is expanding rapidly in Asia: It debuted the first of 2 stores in India; in 2020, it also opened the first city-center store in Tokyo near one of its busiest metro stations. The Swedish furniture retailer now has 4 stores in Indonesia and another 4 in South Korea.
The Philippines has a relatively young population of more than 105 million people dominated by a working-age demographic. Pre-COVID, the economy has expanded above 6% for 13 straight quarters, propped up by personal consumption which makes up the bulk of the country's gross domestic product.
