Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Now IKEA is becoming more and more like a gourmet UP.

Everyone's earliest impression of IKEA is nothing more than the same minimalist Eastern European furniture in small red books, and offline stores especially suitable for photos. But in recent years, the voice of IKEA in the marketplace has grown weaker.

In July this year, the chatter account of IKEA Flavor House was officially launched. The authentication subject of this account is (IKEA) China Investment Co., Ltd., and the videos released mainly focus on meatballs, steaks, muffins and various cakes. IKEA's flavor house has also tried live broadcasting with goods. The highest sales volume is IKEA Swedish restaurant's classic meatball single set menu, priced at 36.99 yuan, which has sold 3094 copies so far.

As a household brand that has been in China for many years, it is the first time to try a gourmet video, but it can also be seen that IKEA is in a difficult situation. As an international home furnishing giant, it also needs to pull offline passenger flow through online gourmet shopping coupons.

But can hard-to-sell IKEA be saved by meatballs?

IKEA's gourmet gene "IKEA is a gourmet city delayed by selling furniture. "

"Going to IKEA is fake, going to restaurants is real. "

"There is nothing bad about IKEA food. "

……

IKEA has always had the gene of food. The most popular article about IKEA in Little Red Book is not the matching of home, but an article about "IKEA must-eat food list," which lists the special food in IKEA offline stores in detail.

"You can never do business with someone who is hungry. "This is a well-known concept of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, and IKEA has always practiced it from beginning to end.

IKEA received 915 million people worldwide in 2016, of which IKEA catering received 650 million people, that is, about 70% of customers will eat at IKEA. By 2019, IKEA is the sixth largest restaurant chain in the world. According to IKEA statistics: more than 30% of consumers around the world never buy furniture, just to buy food.

In China, IKEA's food and beverage revenue accounts for more than 10% of total sales, with a turnover of RMB 1.5 billion.

With good reputation from food genes and the public, IKEA tried its first live broadcast on September 24, attracting nearly 50,000 viewers and 62,000 likes on the same day. According to the gray dolphin data platform, from September 24 to September 28, IKEA IKEA Flavor House had 3 effective live broadcasts, each live broadcast lasted about 3-4 hours, among which 2 live broadcasts were accompanied by links with goods. The average number of viewers of these two live broadcasts reached 100,000, and the accumulated sales exceeded 120,000 yuan.

Source: IKEA Flavor House Up to now, IKEA Flavor House has carried out more than 10 live broadcasts, with accumulated sales of more than 1 million yuan and 45,000 fans of its chatter account.

This 1 million yuan sales is not a very high GMV figure for a global home furnishing giant like IKEA. But its most critical thing is that it can attract traffic on the line to the line.

IKEA's biggest characteristic is large, too large area can be called maze. The "maze" layout of shopping malls is also a psychological weapon, keeping customers as long as possible while psychologically forcing consumers to make impulse purchases and buy more goods.

When you buy a meatball single set meal and go to IKEA in high spirits, you find that IKEA restaurants are often in the deepest position and need to pass through many model rooms to reach the restaurant. And along the way will pass tables and chairs benches, pots and pans, bedding and other scenes home, there is always a can stimulate customers 'desire to consume.

In a trance, IKEA seems to transform into a "One Piece" big boss shouting: "Want my meatballs? Take it if you want it! Go find it! I put all my food there! "

In addition to food, store closure is a painful reality that IKEA cannot avoid.

On April 1,2022, IKEA China announced the closure of offline stores in Guiyang, the first store closed since IKEA entered the Chinese market in 1998.

In July 2022, IKEA China announced the closure of Shanghai Yangpu Store. According to IKEA's official public account, the closure of Shanghai Yangpu Store is due to market changes, uncertainties caused by the epidemic, consumer preferences, and its own reasons.

The main reason for IKEA's closure is nothing more than two points. The first is the cost and terminal price increase caused by inflation and supply chain problems in the epidemic era; the second is that domestic consumers are increasingly inclined to shop online, and a large number of online platforms compete for low-price traffic, which continues to impact the offline market.

IKEA's response to the precarious market environment is also questionable. On December 30,2021, IKEA parent company Inka Group announced that IKEA would raise prices by an average of 9% in the global market due to increased transportation and raw material costs.

At home, according to upstream news reports: in 2022, the price of IKEA's various product lines rose, among which the price of Lark storage partition rose from 399 yuan to 599 yuan; Igwa dining chair rose from 599 yuan to 899 yuan; Malm six-bucket cabinet rose directly from 999 yuan to 1499 yuan. IKEA's reasons for responding to consumers 'price increases are: "The price adjustment in the store is affected by the price of raw materials, and also affected by the cost of land transportation, sea transportation and logistics, so the price adjustment is different. "

Large sofa double bed, small parts supporting products are in the scope of price increase, but the specific product list of price increase, IKEA said temporarily unable to provide.

IKEA's internal pictures of raw materials affected by the epidemic rose, and IKEA decisively shifted the pressure on customers to pay for them. This practice instantly caused protests across the network, and passenger traffic declined sharply.

IKEA parent company Ingka Group's fiscal year 2021 performance report shows that IKEA's global store sales fell by 8% in fiscal year 2021, receiving 775 million customers in total, 50 million fewer than 825 million in fiscal year 2020. In addition to the drop in customer traffic, the quality of IKEA's products has also begun to explode.

According to public information statistics: IKEA recalled 22,000, 134,200 and 173,600 products respectively during the three years from 2019 to 2021, and the number of defective products is increasing.

On the Black Cat Complaint Platform, IKEA has accumulated 870 complaints, most of which are online platform complaints, mostly involving problems such as "no after-sales handling,""no customer service call answered,""slow return processing speed," etc.

IKEA has had a tough two years, both in terms of foot traffic and product quality.

The continuous investment in online channels from offline to online is a common move for furniture brands in these years, and IKEA is no exception.

In March 2020, IKEA officially entered Tmall and opened the world's first online official flagship store on a third-party platform. On the day of Tmall, IKEA App was launched simultaneously. According to IKEA, the official App will have 9300 SKUs, roughly equivalent to 9500 SKUs in IKEA offline stores.

IKEA has made a good start in its initial online channels in China. In 2021, IKEA's online sales in China increased by 74% compared with the previous fiscal year, and IKEA's own online channels received 230 million visits in the Chinese market. But as soon as the consumer's freshness passed, IKEA was immediately returned to its original form.

According to IKEA's announcement, IKEA's online sales fell 10% in fiscal year 2022 compared with fiscal year 2021, with IKEA's online channels receiving 4.3 billion visitors this year, down from 5 billion last year.

IKEA urgently needs new online channels to drive sales growth. In addition to e-commerce, live broadcasting is undoubtedly the best choice.

At the launch meeting of the new fiscal year 2023, IKEA China said it plans to invest another 5.3 billion yuan in the development of the domestic market, especially in digital channels. However, for China's local home furnishing brands that have long completed the layout of online platforms such as e-commerce and live broadcasting, IKEA's actions undoubtedly lag behind a lot.

For IKEA, meatballs alone won't save 50 million traffic drops.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Zinc Finance (ID: xincaijing), Author: Sun Pengyue

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