Ikea is testing mini showrooms & order pickup at college bookstores
Ikea is experimenting with a new way to get its products to college students: having a presence on campus.
This fall, the home furnishings retailer set up small displays of Ikea products like bedding, desks and shelves within Follett Higher Education campus bookstores at three universities in the Chicago area: University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago and Loyola University. The retailer also placed kiosks in the stores for students to place orders to be delivered from an Ikea store to the campus bookstore for free pickup. Follett and Ikea are testing the concept to decide whether to expand it to other campus stores nationwide.
Ikea’s stores are typically on the outskirts of metro areas and not necessarily accessible to college students. Based on feedback from students and parents, the company has been experimenting with new options to better reach them and the bookstores stood out as a potential option. “Ikea’s main mission is to provide functional home furnishing for the many at an affordable price; this is a key group of people that have that need, and they’re just getting started in terms of thinking about home furnishings for life,” said Samantha Gravina, area manager for Ikea in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.
The program was done quietly and only promoted through the colleges themselves, Gravina said, adding that the retailer wanted to see what kind of response would come through solely through the colleges rather than also promoting the pick-up-at-school service at the Ikea store — which could have led to bookstores full of furniture. “We didn’t want to disappoint,” Gravina said. “We wanted to make sure that we were getting what we promised to the customers and to the bookstore as we built this relationship and then grow from there.”
This marks an increased investment by the home furnishings retailer in the lucrative back-to-college shopping season, which the National Retail Federation estimated would bring in an average of $1,364.75 per person in 2024, about in line with 2023 but up about 14% from 2022. “Equally important, back-to-college represents an important life transition when many students are forming new consumer habits and starting new relationships with retail brands,” Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Group, said in an email. “Ikea is smart to meet consumers where they are during this important shopping event.”
Angela Moses, vice president of hardlines and partnerships for Follett, said the companies are determining what worked and discussing how the program may continue moving forward. The Ikea displays may shrink to make room for other bookstore promotions, such as for sports. “What the Ikea team was able to offer in this test environment might look different from a long-term perspective.”
The program was an experiment to see how delivery to the bookstores would work and what kind of products students would have delivered. Moses said they considered limiting the assortment but ended up allowing the full range of Ikea products so even large items like mattresses would show up on campus. “I was very glad that we didn’t put the guardrails on it, because I think we learned a lot about what the possibilities were,” she said.
Follett and Barnes & Noble College had previously expanded their campus living categories and set up furniture displays in some of their bookstores this fall after Bed Bath & Beyond closed hundreds of stores last year. Leaders at both college bookstore chains told Modern Retail they hoped to fill that void directly on campus and possibly help college and university administrators manage the influx number of packages from online ordering. Additionally, the digitization of textbooks at many colleges and universities left the bookstores with more space for other products.
The bookstore partnership is one of many new ways Ikea and its U.S. franchisee Ingka Group have been experimenting with displaying and delivering its products affordably outside of its large stores, often in suburban areas. These include small-format Planning Studios focused on kitchens, baths and bedrooms that have opened over the past several years, as well as a bus tour visiting college campuses this fall and a store in Midtown Manhattan in New York City planned to open in a few years.
“You’re going to see Ikea testing and trying throughout the world right now how to become a broader omnichannel retailer than we already currently are,” Gravina said.