IKEA looking at opening a new store in downtown Helsinki
IKEA, the Swedish company that designs and sells furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories has been adamant in opening a store in Helsinki, the capital of Helsinki.
Originally the company was seeking to open it's store in the Pasila area in Helsinki - where construction for the new Tripla mall is being built. The Pasila plans were first discussed in 2013, but in 2015 the company backed out of the plans to build the first Helsinki IKEA department store north of Pasila, in Ilmala.
After the Pasila plans were closed, the company is now seeking to open a store in the district of Jätkäsaari. Jätkäsaari is already home to major retail shopping complex of Verkkokauppa.com. While the Jätkäsaari area is somewhat crammed, it does hold the advantage that the harbour for passengers to Tallinn is located there.
The opportunity to sell goods to punters going to and from the Estonian capital Tallinn is interesting. Unfortunately for now IKEA has not been able to secure a deal for the department store in southern Helsinki. But sources say the company is still looking to expand to increase capacity within Helsinki.
The company does have two stores in the greater region in Espoo and Vantaa, with free bus transportation to the IKEA stores.
IKEA plans expansion in the Baltics
Meanwhile the company is making great efforts in the Baltic countries. The company opened it's first Baltic store in Vilna Lithuania in 2013 and has been happy with the first five years of operation. Opening stores in Estonia and Latvia is still on the table, but no decision has been made.
In 2016 a subsidiary of IKEA, IRI Investments OÜ, Purchased 300 hectares of land, some of which 66 is fores. At the moment the company owns a total of 6199 hectars of land, with 5366 hectares still being forestland. IKEA plans to open a company specialized in land aquision to southern Estonia, Tarto. The company already has similar offices in the Latvian capital Riga and the second largest city in Lithuania - Kaunas.
There has been a lot of traffic from Estonia to the IKEAs around the Helsinki region because of the lack of stores in Estonia and the other baltic states. It remains to be seen how this private trafficing of office and home furniture from Finland to Estonia will be affected by a local store.
Prices are expected to be similar within countries, but maybe the tide will change especially for large purchases such as kitchens. Maybe in a few years Finns will order goods from Estonia, like many already do for white goods.