Ikea Improving Case

Topic Reasons:

1. Poor response rate on IKEA social websites (Weibo, Douban) and the official community

Though IKEA has their official online community and accounts on the most popular social websites; neither has got enough attention and effective interaction.

2. Good online product presenting on IKEA.com but lack the featuring experience of IKEA.

The official website is designed in a simple way. The main purpose of it is to present the products in a 360 degree way to consumers online. IKEA.com excels at giving clear information and vivid view like exactly what they do in their paper catalogues. However, we were expecting more on the website.

They allow consumers to design their own closet, but the app runs promptly. They feature on their on-site experience, but no such experience is given online, and you cannot even buy the piece online in China. With technologies advanced every day, how can IKEA.com just be a catalogue online? It’s a challenging work, but we believe it can be better.

Introduction:

IKEA is a Swedish company registered in the Netherlands that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture (such as beds, chairs, and desks), appliances, and home accessories, featuring Scandinavian modern style.

IKEA is now operating more than three hundred stores in more than 40 countries. The IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and is the closest representation of the entire IKEA range. There were over 470 million visitors to IKEA’s websites in the year from September 2007 to September 2008.

Current Marketing Strategy:

Product

IKEA offers a wide range of storage options, lighting, decor products, kitchen appliances and pet care. Their products can be separated into two big categories of home and office, which covers most furniture and appliances.

A large product portfolio is terrific but not enough to differentiate IKEA’s products. Another key point of IKEA is that all products can be easily assembled by customers themselves at home. This makes possible the more convenient transportation for everything you buy there can be folded and fit in your car. Also when customers buy stuff there, they can enjoy the process of building their furniture, thus raising the CPV (customer perceived value).

We cannot forget that all IKEA pieces are in Scandinavian modern style, which we can say were not that popular around the globe before this Sweden furniture titan. Somehow, this unique style echoes with the modern consumers worldwide. Even in the big North America where American style furniture used to occupy the most market, IKEA has made her way into it finally in a hard way.

Price

IKEA is targeted at the young low to middle income class