The management of IKEA Belgium has come to this conclusion after studying consumer demand.
Currently there are eight large IKEA stores in Belgium. A spokesperson for the company told Belgian newspaper La Libre, that several smaller stores could be added to this total. “We have come to the realisation that the large store concept of over 30,000 square metres with hundreds of parking lots out in the country side, no longer meets the demand of the customers. We are therefore looking for a solution for the longer term.”
One of those solutions would be to open smaller stores “of smaller size formats”, which is currently already happening in other European countries. The management could decide to do the same in Brussels, but “nothing has been decided yet”.
