Ikea's new store in Barcelona is not like the usual ones, with a fixed route, passing first through the exhibition area and then through the product area, with both parts including all the rooms in a house. The one on Avenida Diagonal, at number 445-447 and with 540 square meters, only has spaces dedicated to exhibition and assisted sale of kitchen and bedroom items and, furthermore, it does not have products for sale.
Purchases at this new Ikea Planning Studio are preferably made by appointment and with personalized advice from Ikea employees. You can try beds; open wardrobes or sit on dining chairs, but you cannot buy them directly or take them home at the same time, as is done at the Ikea in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Badalona or Sabadell.
The opening of the first establishment in the Catalan capital, scheduled for this Wednesday, fits into a new brand format, Ikea Planning Studio, which the company wants to implement with more stores in the coming years. The one in Barcelona is the second in all of Spain, after the one in Sant Pere de Ribes, which was the first to adopt this approach.
The entry into Barcelona will act as a spearhead for its expansion in Catalonia, where it plans to open between four and eight more establishments of this style in the coming years, creating about 40 jobs. The multinational plans to invest more than 150 million euros and create 750 jobs in the Spanish market, with Catalonia as one of the most important growth focuses, taking into account that the company's sales in this area represent 23% of the total.
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