Ikea’s big India push: Online sales to start in Delhi-NCR, 9 other cities; more physical stores in coming years

Famous furniture company Ikea will soon begin online sales in Delhi-NCR and nine other markets in the country as a part of its expansion strategy in India.

The Swedish furniture retailer will begin online sales in Agra, Prayagraj, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ludhiana and Varanasi this week before opening full-size physical stores in Gurugram and Noida in the coming years.

Moreover, the company plans to open small city centres in Delhi-NCR ahead of the full-size stores. These centres will be opened in Gurugram using a 1.8 lakh sq feet Customer Distribution Centre (CDC).

In 2021, Ikea's parent company Ingka announced its plans to open two shopping malls, each featuring an Ikea store, in Gurgaon and Noida.

Ikea entered the Indian market with a huge store in Hyderabad. For nearly six years, the company has operated in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru and is now entering the North India market.

North India is undeniably India’s largest home furnishings market and Ikea aims to unlock this opportunity, the company said.

“We have worked a lot on the logistics setup that can fulfill orders in both Delhi-NCR and the nine prominent cities that we will open online, and we have two big projects that are coming up. We are also looking at other formats for Delhi, so it's a whole combination of omni-channel retailing. Delhi is our top priority. We are very excited it is the biggest home finishing market,” Susanne Pulverer, CEO & chief sustainability officer of Ikea India, said in an interview with Live Mint.

The furniture company will have a store app alongside different store formats and two full-size stores in Delhi-NCR. The Gurugram store is expected to open in 2026 with an investment of approximately ₹3,500 crore, and the Noida store in 2028 with a planned investment of ₹5,500 crore, a Live Mint report said.

Ikea, which has adopted a hybrid omni-channel strategy for India, is now starting online sales in new markets before opening physical stores. Online sales account for nearly 30% of the company’s sales in the country.

Ikea India e-commerce head Bhavana Jaiswal, commenting on the contribution of online sales from the nine cities and Delhi-NCR, said, “Temporarily, we will see an increase in the number till the time the store comes through in Delhi-NCR, the biggest market in the country.”

She added, “The Delhi online market is as big as Bengaluru and we do expect a good spike in sales.”