On a June afternoon, a very soon-to-be mother closely examined an expandable, hanging clothes dryer, replete with 16 clips and resembling a child’s mobile, at Kyiv’s latest shopping hotspot.
“I can’t stop, I want everything,” Claudia Khodokovska said. “I’m finally getting to see IKEA in Ukraine.”
Like the numerous other visitors, her eyes were hungry as it has been only four months since the iconic Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA officially opened its first store in Ukraine.
Ukraine is the last European country where IKEA has set up shop. It took over 15 years for the Swedish company, with its strict, zero-tolerance corruption policy, to finally feel ready to open here.
“We finally did it and we are really happy,” said Florian Mellet, head of IKEA in Ukraine.
However, there was no grand opening of a several-thousand square-meter blue warehouse with its giant, bright yellow iconic IKEA logo.
In May 2020, the Swedish retailer launched online sales prior to the opening of a physical store for the first time in the company’s history. It was the best solution to opening a store amid a pandemic and lockdowns.
“Launching e-commerce was the safest way to start our operations in Ukraine,” said Mellet.
Unexpected demand
Once online sales began, IKEA couldn’t handle the snowballing amount of orders. People had to wait for weeks to receive their items. “The demand exceeded our expectations,” said Mellet.
But a year later, IKEA’s 250-employee team in Ukraine can now handle over 1,000 daily orders, five times more than when they opened. The company plans to double the number of its workers by the end of this summer.
During the last month-long lockdown in April, the company hit a high of 1,200 orders in one day. “These are really impressive figures,” Mellet said. “It’s a record.”
Florian Mellet, IKEA’s chief in Ukraine, speaks with the Kyiv Post inside the company’s first Ukrainian store on June 8, 2021. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Currently, the company delivers its goods within two days in Kyiv, and within 3–4 days across the country.
“It’s very good because, believe me, in many other countries the delivery time is much longer,” said Mellet, who added that IKEA also has four pick-up points across Kyiv.
As of May, people made a total of 8,000 purchases — one order every 10 minutes — in the Kyiv store, and 148,000 orders online. Shoppers mostly bought storage boxes, hangers, reusable bags, plates and tablet holders, according to an IKEA press release.
“Ukrainian people are looking for storage solutions to adapt to small spaces,” said Mellet, who was surprised by how many Ukraininans live in small flats often together with several family generations.
Although the range of products in Ukraine is still far from the 9,000 products IKEA sells in France or Poland, the selection has already expanded from an initial 3,600 to 5,000.
“We have been growing quite fast and we have bigger plans to grow even more,” Mellet said. “We are only at the beginning of the journey.”
Although he didn’t disclose any of IKEA’s further plans in Ukraine, Mellet said that the company will add more locations “as soon as there are more opportunities.”
City store format
Unlike in South Korea, where IKEA opened a massive, 59,000 square-meter store near Seoul in 2014, the Ukrainian store is ten times smaller, located close to the city center inside the giant Blockbuster Mall.
According to IKEA’s estimations, almost 400,000 people have stepped foot in the store since it opened. “Nearly the population of Vinnytsia (a city 250 kilometers southwest of Kyiv) has already visited it,” Mellet said.
Inside the store, the company has built a cozy, 55-square-meter apartment that shows how one can furnish a kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedrooms for adults and children.
“We are not only a furniture dealer, we also want to bring inspiration, a dream to our customers,” Mellet said. “This is very important for us.”
IKEA personnel also help customers to design their future kitchen or wardrobe as the store has a section equipped with computers and chairs. It is the place where “the magic is happening,” Mellet said.
“It’s always nice to see the smile on the face of people when they see the final result,” he said. “You don’t buy a kitchen every month, it’s quite an investment.”
A fully furnished kitchen made of particleboard with a sink and overhead lighting, but no appliances, costs $1,600, as the price tag shows.
However, some customers looking for a new kitchen found it too expensive.
Roman Ruzhyntsev was looking at kitchens for a while, but ultimately decided not to buy one at IKEA. He said he noticed too many “small imperfections” like unpainted panel joints or pre-drilled holes for shelves.
If you imagine cooking in a kitchen like this for the next 10 years, then it shouldn’t cost so much,” Ruzhyntsev said.
While the store isn’t serving IKEA’s famous Swedish meatballs and gravy yet, it does have a section called the ‘circular hub’. There, IKEA sells it’s used furniture with up to 50% discounts to give the items a “second life.”
“We don’t like to waste, we prefer to recycle,” Mellet said. “We see a lot of people happy no matter the income they have.”
Illegal logging
Last July, the U.K.-based non-profit organization Earthsight published an 18-month-long investigation alleging that IKEA was selling chairs made of beech wood illegally logged in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains.
The company is the largest consumer of wood in the world, using an additional 2 million more trees every year. It has denied any accusations.
After the investigation, the Swedish retailer completed its own audit on both its internal operations and external supply companies. According to IKEA, the company has eliminated any possibility of using illegally logged trees from Ukraine.
Mellet says IKEA has a special department of 40 people, including forestry specialists, who are “working hard” to prevent using illegal wood in the company’s production.
“We have strong requirements, a due diligence process, and audits to ensure that at the end, all the wood that we are using in our supply chain and in production is the proper one,” he said.
Mellet insists he has a new found love for Ukraine after living here with his family for the last three years.
“When I first landed in Kyiv I was really impressed, because it’s not only a dynamic city, it’s a very attractive and welcoming city,” he said.
“Now I feel that I’m one of the strongest ambassadors of Kyiv and Ukraine across Europe.”
