Ikea Macau opens – with a two-week wait to get inside

Ikea Macau opened its doors yesterday, the first of the Swedish furniture homeware retailer’s stores in Asia which does not feature the brand’s traditional one-way ‘winding path’ format.

The 90,000sqft store, the territory’s first Ikea, opened at Nova Grande residence’s shopping mall in Taipa. It includes an Ikea Cafe, Swedish Food Market and has 600 parking spaces for customers.

However, in line with government-mandated social-distancing requirements, the store is for the time being open only to shoppers who pre-register online, nominating a time slot, and who complete a mandatory Electronic Health Declaration Form in advance. No walk-in customers will be permitted. These measures will ensure the store limits the number of customers inside at any one time to minimize the risk of people contracting Covid-19.

With the opening of the Ikea Macau store much anticipated by locals, who previously had to shop in Hong Kong stores and ship products back, all shopping slots for the first 14 days of trading were booked out before yesterday’s opening.

Ikea Macau is operated by Dairy Farm Group, which also holds the Ikea license for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia.

“Ikea is a fantastic and growing business and a very important part of the Dairy Farm family,” said CEO Ian McLeod in an email to Inside Retail Asia.

“With the opening of this, our 13th store, we are delighted to be bringing Ikea’s unique home-furnishing experience to our customers in Macau with this innovative store.”

Of the store’s 90,000sqft total footprint, about 60,000sqft is dedicated to retail space and 6000sqft to a dining area which seats 286. The Swedish Food Market & Bistro takes up about 2000sqft. It employs 120 staff and trades from 10am to 10pm daily.

Store manager Jacklyn Tse said in a message to customers that now the Macau store is open, no further orders for Macau delivery will be accepted through Hong Kong stores. However, Macau customers can now shop or order online on both the Hong Kong and Macau sites and opt into local delivery, pick-up and assembly services.

The first Ikea Hong Kong store opened in 1975. Today, there are five stores across the two territories – located at Causeway Bay, Kowloon Bay, Shatin, Tsuen Wan in Hong Kong, and now Taipa.