First, the rich don't shop Ikea.Alpha8472 wrote: ↑March 3rd, 2024, 8:58 pm There is an Ikea just across the bridge from San Francisco in Emeryville, California with a huge free parking garage. There is no way I am driving into San Francisco to shop at the little IKEA.
The IKEA in San Francisco is mostly for people who live in San Francisco. These are rich tech workers, upper middle class people who live in million dollar homes, millionaires who live in million dollar condos, etc. The rich will shop at the little IKEA and take an Uber or limo. The people who don't want to pay for parking will drive the extra 15 minutes to Emeryville.
The IKEA in Emeryville is overflowing with customers. The San Francisco IKEA is doing its job at reducing the wall to wall crowds at the Emeryville store. This will in turn lead to more customers since many people avoided Emeryville since there were so many crowds.
Emeryville will always appeal to those with cars, and San Francisco will appeal to those who don't care about parking.
Second, I don't see how this mini store could reduce the traffic at a regular store because it lacks all the merchandise that causes the crowds. This is just a showroom. The marketplace at a regular Ikea attracts repeat business selling consumables like the famous tealight candle packs; this store lacks that endless maze of those home accessories like a super sized Walmart or Costco. So nobody is choosing this SF site as an alternative to the full size store; that isn't even what Ikea intends these mini stores to do. They are intended to introduce new customers to the brand and entice them to visit the larger store someday. If this store works as intended then the Emeryville store should be busier now than it was before.
Last, parking is a definite problem but it is not the entire reason all reports indicate this store is a ghost town. The fact is the store is too big for what it's supposed to be, a simple showroom with a few furniture and kitchen design centers. And it's also too small to meet the expectations of the customer who knows what Ikea is supposed to be, a place full of home stuff cheap where you can't avoid filling a cart with dozens of bargain items. It lacks that entire department from what I've seen, just a few random selected SKUs of pots and pans, plates, curtains, etc. They needed to open something 90% smaller... Just like these urban locations everyone is speaking of all around the world. What everyone is getting wrong is that the typical urban small International Ikea showroom is about 5,000 Sq ft... Even the US ones like the new Long Beach, CA one. This SF store is over 50,000 Sq ft. It's too big to be small enough, and too small to be big enough. It's a mistake that likely will be corrected with a closure.