IKEA Belgium will reduce prices on more than 750 products following record sales growth over the past year.
According to reports published in both L'Echo and La Libre, over the period August 2022-August 2023 the Belgian subsidiary of the Swedish household appliance and furniture retailer registered €1.208 billion in total revenue: a 16% increase from the previous year, which is three times greater than the chain's global annual sales growth of 5.7%.
The vast majority of the increase in sales was in the company's e-commerce 'Click & Collect' services (+97%), while food product (+29%) and kitchen appliance (+12%) sales also performed strongly. The total number of in-person customer visits increased by one million, reaching 12.8 million.
Jon Abrahamson Ring, the CEO of Inter IKEA Group (the franchisor of IKEA Belgium), explained that the group's record earnings are mostly a consequence of lower transport and raw material costs, which in turn are due to a general easing of supply-chain bottlenecks following the lifting of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
"In these times of high inflation, which means that many people are struggling with the cost of living, the need for furniture at affordable prices is high," Ring told La Libre.
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"Thanks to our operational improvement, we are able to pass on €29 million directly to customers by lowering the price of some of our products," he added, noting that the group's price cuts will be "mainly in its most affordable range" of products.
Originally founded in 1943, IKEA first arrived in Belgium in 1984. There are currently eight IKEA stores in the country (in Anderlecht, Arlon, Ghent, Liège, Wilrijk, Zaventem, Hasselt and Mons), which collectively employ roughly 4,500 people.
