Ikea has decided to close down one of its stores at the Stockport Merseyway Shopping Centre, just two years after its initial opening. The specific store being closed is the Ikea Plan and Order point, which focuses on assisting customers with kitchen, bedroom, and living room planning through design advice.
While customers cannot directly purchase items at the Plan and Order point, they have the option to place orders for home delivery. The nearest operational Ikea store is located in Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside.
Salma Azad, the Ikea area manager, expressed that the decision to close the Plan and Order point was made following a thorough evaluation. She mentioned that the insights gained from the two years of operation will be utilized in future store openings to better serve customers.
The closure of the Merseyway Shopping Centre location comes as Ikea recently launched a new store on Oxford Street in London, following the takeover of the former TopShop site. This new store spans three floors within a seven-storey building and offers a retail space of 5,800 square meters.
The Oxford Street store is the second smaller format Ikea store, with the first being the Hammersmith branch launched in 2023. It carries approximately 6,000 product lines, but only 3,500 items are available for immediate purchase at the store.
Each product in the Oxford Street store is marked with either a yellow or red tag, indicating whether it can be bought and taken home directly or if it needs to be ordered for home delivery or click and collect.
Peter Jelkeby, CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA UK, mentioned that the Oxford Street store will feature new exclusive elements tailored to the city center and created with input from Londoners.
Tolga Öncü, Ingka Retail Manager (COO) at IKEA Retail (Ingka Group), highlighted the significance of adding the Oxford Street store to the Ikea map, emphasizing the company’s commitment to innovating retail presence and making Ikea products more accessible in urban centers worldwide.
