Ikea is to open a second-hand store, where only used and refurbished furniture from the home interior chain is sold. The new store concept is intended to help the Swedish retailer with its sustainability ambitions.
Testing in practice
The world’s first Ikea second-hand shop will arrive in Sweden before the end of this year. The concept store is a pilot project that will be regularly evaluated and adapted. The plan is to bring damaged furniture and decorative items from nearby branches to the store for repair and resale.
“If we are going to reach our sustainability goals we need to challenge ourselves and test our ideas in practice,” says Jonas Carlehed, sustainability director for Ikea in Sweden. By 2030, the retailer wants to reduce its impact on the climate by 70% and the company also aims to use only renewable or recycled materials.
Already on a local scale
With the new store, the chain is gaining experience in, among other things, repairing and recycling used items. Although it is striking that Ikea is opening a separate shop for this, because in most of the chain’s department stores today furniture is already on offer with minor production defects or transport damage.
In 2019, Ikea also started a pilot project to lease products in a number of markets: customers can rent furniture for and return it later. The department store chain also wants to encourage customers to resell their old furniture or have a charity donated by Ikea.
The second-hand shop also opens in a unique location: in the ReTuna shopping centre, the first shopping centre in the world to offer only recycled and second-hand products – including the hotel and catering industry.
