Swedish flat-packed furniture pioneer IKEA opened its first outlet-of-sorts on Wilshire Blvd on Monday morning in an attempt to make the brand more convenient and accessible for folk in Santa Monica. Prior to this, customers have either had to pay for delivery to their door or make a pilgrimage down to Carson, or over to Burbank.
“We're so glad to finally put a footprint here. The Santa Monica pick-up point provides a seamless integration of online and offline shopping, allowing our customers to place any order online at ikea.com and pick it up for free the next day here in this location – this location also offers the full range of IKEA services, including delivery, assembly and financing,” Briana Lehman, Market Manager at IKEA North America said.
Even as the crowd gathered for the official ribbon cutting ceremony with the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, customers were nipping into the outlet to pick up items they’d ordered a day or so ago, pausing only momentarily to enjoy the impressive spread of speciality Swedish cakes and confectionary that were on offer.
“I think shopping has changed. We moved to online a long time ago and we talk a lot about how the big brick and mortars aren't a thing. However, in some ways, we have a lot of cool shops, but we're sort of on an island … and I know maybe Santa Monica has not seen itself as hosting a giant store warehouse store, but if you're shopping online, this like fills the gap, at least you can drive right down the street and pick it up in Santa Monica,” Mayor Lana Negrete told the Daily Press.
“I'm hoping that, since this site is right on the edge of West LA, we'll bring people into Santa Monica, because after talking to this landlord, there's a lot of businesses just in the shopping mall that hopefully people will frequent. So I think it's going to bring business into Santa Monica from the neighboring cities. But more importantly, I'm super glad it’s servicing us, because we don't have this stuff,” Negrete said.
As of the third quarter of 2024, there were 473 IKEA stores operating in 63 countries – including 51 retail locations in the US – and in the fiscal year 2024, US $47.2 billion worth of IKEA goods were sold. Moreover, the IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and there were over 4.6 billion visitors to IKEA's websites in FY 2024.
“IKEA is very close to the heart … So I just want to say it makes me really proud when these things are happening … Thank you and I can't wait to order stuff and have all my friends order stuff and come and pick them up in five minutes,” said Honorary Consul of Sweden, Gudrun Giddings.
Gus Tinajero, Los Angeles Area Manager spoke of how this outlet will always be staffed by IKEA personnel so if there’s ever a problem with the order it can be dealt with in-person without having to spend hours on hold on the phone.
Talking in regards to the vast amounts of displaced Palisades Fire victims who are renting apartments in Santa Monica, Tinajero said, “We see that the consumers are looking to us for temporary needs, and there will be more long term needs in the future. So from a timing perspective, you never want to celebrate when something bad happens, but I think if we look at the brighter side of things, at least we're here for people that have been affected.”
When asked if this small outlet would be able to handle the amount of traffic needed to bring ordered furniture deliveries here, Tinajero said, “We're extremely confident about that as we always plan ahead based on volume and amount of orders that are expected,” he said, adding, “And we have a delivery that happens every morning, before business is open. So the beauty is that there's no interference with the traffic coming into the center of town … and with really great access off of Wilshire, it makes it a really great location.”
Another similar outlet has opened in Ontario and a third is planned to open in Thousand Oaks in Spring 2025. These new locations, in addition to the two recent openings in Laguna Hills and Arcadia are part of a plan to make purchasing products from IKEA significantly easier for everyone in Southern California
The IKEA Santa Monica pick-up point is at Stanford Court strip mall at 3017 Wilshire Blvd. Check out ikea.com for details on delivery and everything else related to your domestic furniture requirements.
