A growing middle class and a booming housing market have prompted Swedish furniture maker IKEA to construct its largest-ever store within the Philippines, officials said Tuesday.
The IKEA Philippines store is scheduled to open in 2020, company officials said. It could have a surface area of 65,000 square meters, enough to accommodate 150 basketball courts, and can be almost twice the scale of a typical store.
The property can be positioned within the SM Mall of Asia within the Manila Bay area, where real estate prices have surged in the primary three months of the 12 months resulting from strong demand that outstripped other business districts within the capital.
Only two of IKEA Philippines’ five floors can be dedicated to brick-and-mortar retail. The rest can be used for a warehouse and a call center that can handle the corporate’s e-commerce side, said Georg Platzer, who will manage the shop.
“The Philippines is a very young country. I think the fact that the average age is 24 makes us believe in our great future here,” Platzer told ABS-CBN News.
“The new generation loves to shop online, but at the same time they love to be inspired by touching, feeling and testing, so I think that’s a combination. No one should deny that there’s another way to retail,” he said.
Its website, www.IKEA.ph, is anticipated to be accessible to over 6 million Filipinos within the Metro Manila region, he added.
IKEA Southeast Asia said it’s spending 7 billion pesos per store and can hire 500 Filipinos, from top management to cashiers. Details of the recruitment can be posted on its website, it added.
Asked if there can be more stores within the country, Platzer said, “after we learn the lessons, we will expand them soon, so of course the idea is that one day we will have good service in the Philippines.”
“This is a rustic of 120 million people. I got here from Austria, where there are 8 million people. We have 7 stores. Now do your math,” Platzer said.
IKEA operates 422 stores in 50 countries.
Source : ABS-CBN
