IKEA has confirmed that it will open a new Plan and Order points here in Carlow.
The new store - Ikea's fifth Plan and Order Point in Ireland - is to open in the Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow town at the end of this month.
More outlets are expected to open for business later this year.
The retailer already has four such outlets in operation in Naas, Cork, Drogheda and in the St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre in Dublin.
IKEA's Plan and Order Points are specialised stores focused on bespoke kitchen and wardrobe design planning.
They offer customers access to home furnishing advice and expertise, assisting them in designing, buying, and installing kitchens and bedrooms.
"We’re excited to bring a touch of Swedishness and affordable home-furnishings to parts of Ireland where we’ve not yet had a physical presence before," Martyn Allan, Market Manager, IKEA Ireland said.
"They’re also a fantastic place for us to help people living far away from our store in Ballymun with their other IKEA purchases, such as ordering a sofa or a wardrobe," he added.
IKEA is to commence a major upgrade of its flagship Irish store in Ballymun in Dublin 11 this month with a €4.5 million project to upgrade the store’s façade and carpark.
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It has also opened a children’s department and a refurbished bedrooms department in the store.
IKEA also confirmed that its new Customer Distribution Centre in Rathcoole in Co Dublin will open later this spring.
The Distribution Centre aims to expedite deliveries to customers, reducing delivery times from about 7-10 days today to 2-3 days once in operation.
New store and lower prices
Jesper Brodin, CEO of the Ingka Group - the biggest franchisee to operate under the IKEA brand - told Morning Ireland that the retailer was looking at opening another big store in Ireland, but would not be drawn on where it might be.
He said the 'Plan and Order' innovation was the company's way of bringing IKEA closer to the people.
"We continue our dream to find a site for one more big store in Ireland," he said.
Mr Brodin said the company was also announcing price cuts on hundreds of its product lines bringing to over 2,000 the number of items it would cut prices on with average price cuts of 20%.
"We held back during the pandemic for a long time but we we had to in the end accept that inflation had hit us. We are still experiencing a bit of inflation in the consumer end in many markets but we have deflation upstream," he said.
"Everything we can harvest, we we are pushing it towards customers," he explained.
Jesper Brodin said the latest shipping and logistics issues arising from Houthi rebels attacks had not hit the IKEA Group in any meaningful way.
"The pandemic impacted everything in the supply chain. That was a different ballgame. There was simply great imbalances which drove inflation itself.
"What we see on the big trend is more stabilisation. We are betting that prices will continue to come down at IKEA," he said.
