Furniture mega-chain to open eight new stores in the US despite ‘retail apocalypse’ – see if your area will get one

IKEA has announced eight new stores are opening across the United States – despite the ongoing retail apocalypse.

The new locations are part of the company’s $2.2 billion expansion plan.

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Ikea currently only has 51 stores open in the United States.

The exact locations for the eight stores were not disclosed.

However, San Francisco is getting a new Ikea store later this year.

The Swedish furniture and homewares store opened its first stateside location in Pennsylvania in 1985.

“The US is a priority market for IKEA,” Javier Quinones, IKEA US CEO and chief sustainability officer, told Forbes.

“The US is a mature market and at the forefront of retail innovation.

“We believe it’s the right time to invest and get closer to a lot more Americans about what this investment is trying to do.”

Quinones said the new eight stores will have “the full menu of the IKEA experience.”

In addition to the eight new locations, Ikea is also working on opening 900 new pick-up locations.

For existing locations, Quinones said investments are being made to “make shopping at Ikea faster, more affordable and more sustainable”.

The company is also investing in digital innovation, Forbes reported.

“The stores will be the best place to get inspiration for home furnishings,” said Quinones.

“We will do this more and even better in the future, but we will be adding fulfillment capabilities so they will have a dual role in this omnichannel world.

“It is therefore important that we continue to invest in the branches.”

Meanwhile, other retailers continue to struggle with the ongoing retail apocalypse.

In May 2022, Target and Walmart faltered on Wall Street — and that was before the hundreds of announced store closures announced this year.

“This is a bit of a retail apocalypse,” Dennis Dick, a trader at Bright Trading LLC based in Las Vegas, told Reuters.