As part of its expansion plans for Latin America, IKEA continues its growth in Mexico and seeks to open new stores in Puebla, Guadalajara and MonterreyRicardo Pinheiro, Director of Sales for IKEA Mexico, said this Friday in an interview.
After opening in Mexico City in April 2021, the company is now preparing to land in Puebla, capital of the central state of the same name.
“If all goes well (it will be) during the summernot later than that, and from then on we will continue with our plans to be able to open a physical store also in (the cities of) Guadalajara and Monterrey”, said the manager.
The Swedish company notified its arrival in Mexico in May 2019 and landed in 2021 with an investment of around 1,500 million pesos in the Oceania area, east of the capital.
For Pinheiro, the arrival of IKEA in Mexico reports a “very positive balance” in its first year of operationswhich was fulfilled on April 8.
“We have had more than two million visitors in the store the first year and it is even more positive if we take into consideration that we have opened the first store in Mexico. in the midst of a pandemic“, he pointed.
These good figures, he continued, come with the added challenge of building the store in that period, setting it up, bringing the products to Mexico and forming the teams.
That’s why I always say it has been a miracle open this store under these circumstances. (…) In a year of closure due to confinement, that gives us the clear idea that Mexicans were waiting for the brand and are happy with our arrival, ”said the manager.
Raise market share
Pinheiro believes that despite the fact that more and more Mexicans are getting to know IKEA, “we must also think that two million visitors in a city (and metropolitan area) that has 24 million makes us see that our market share is still quite low.” .
He said that one of the factors is that in Mexico “there are competitors in the market” inmate who have been “many years”.
“But despite this, IKEA has made a big difference in this market for quality, design, functionality” and even prices, he remarked.
Precisely, he said that the opening of the second physical store shows that the brand “is very solid” in the Mexican market and that it comes with a long-term plan.
Digital store goes ‘up’
For the manager, the Mexican client “embraced the brand in a very natural and very strong way”, something that had surprised them since they launched the digital store in October 2020.
“The pandemic taught us that customers increasingly prefer the digital store, which we opened in Mexico City in October 2020. Later, we expanded the business to the outskirts of the capital, such as the cities of Puebla, Toluca, Pachuca, Querétaro and Cuernavaca,” Pinheiro said.
Later, he said, they opened the digital store in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, both cities in the state of Jalisco, while a month ago they opened in the same format in Monterrey and Saltillo.
“We have a plan that in the coming months until the end of this year we would like to expand the digital store much more to many more cities like San Miguel de Allende, San Luis Potosi and Leoncities that are very powerful and that are in this interior area of the country”, he explained.