The Queens, New York, Ikea will close., store as of 3.12., as stated in a company announcement. The first shop in the United States opened in January 2021 and is situated in the Rego Park Mall. with a new, smaller format, offering a full range of products across 115,000 square feet of space, according to the company.
“We are still dedicated to the New York City region. We will continue to test, investigate, and develop our Ikea formats as we look toward future growth and transformation progress in order to meet our customers where they are. We look forward to sharing details about future projects soon,” said the company on its website.
The Rego Park location was supposed to be a “convenient and accessible source of inspiration and home furnishing expertise for New Yorkers,” according to President and chief sustainability officer of Ikea Retail USA, Javier Quinones, in the previous announcement about the store’s opening.
The shop catered to consumers looking to buy and carry out portable home furnishings accessories. With a flat rate of $49 for delivery to any location in New York City, other larger purchases could be made. A further advantage of the Queens store was its proximity to two bus stops as well as the M and R subway lines.
Ikea responded to Furniture Today inquiries regarding the closing with the following statement:
“In order to meet our customers’ needs in a retail environment that is undergoing rapid change, we must continuously transform to build a better Ikea. We have been experimenting with a lot of new ideas, and we were happy to open the first Ikea store in Queens in January 2021.
“Ikea Queens was first introduced in September 2019, and we were optimistic about the future at the time. The failure to reach our objectives over the past few years has been attributed to a variety of factors, including unanticipated events like supply chain problems and lower than anticipated foot traffic. We’ve made the decision to discontinue customer service at our Ikea Queens location starting on Dec. 3. Our goal is to help employees transition to positions at other Ikea locations while keeping as many of them on board as possible.
“The Ikea location in Queens is a part of the country’s first wave of compact city stores., and we want to apply learnings from it to our future locations. Taking lessons from each new store or planning studio that we open will help us to continuously improve as we test, explore, and develop our Ikea formats around the world to meet our customers where they are. We will keep looking for new ways to bring the Ikea experience to the city because we are still committed to the New York City region.”
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Source: https://www.furnituretoday.com/store-closings/ikea-exits-new-york-city-borough/
