IKEA celebrates a milestone this week, 30 years since opening its first Czech store on September 5th in Prague on Budějovická.
The grand opening took place at seven o’clock in the morning and was a big social event, which was also attended by the then Minister of Finance Václav Klaus.
During the month of September, IKEA will offer special discounts, a festive menu, and birthday packages.
“The store was often completely full and there were long queues at the box office. In the beginning, IKEA was perceived extremely prestigious on our market, important personalities and celebrities came here,” recalls Lenka Žižková, a university teacher and publicist who has long been involved in housing culture and design.
“Czechs were visiting the store not only when they needed to buy something for the apartment, but also to get inspired and to improve their mood,” she adds.
The chain moved from Budějovická in 1996 to its own department store in Zličín. In 1998, it opened a second department store in Brno, three years later in Ostrava, and the newest of the department stores, in Prague’s Černý Most, welcomed its first customers in 2004.
Recently, IKEA has launched its English version of the website, to make shopping easier also for the expats and other English-speaking people in the Czech Republic.
The Swedish company is opening also new IKEA formats in cities or improving the digital experience, making it easier to shop online as well as offering great digital solutions in-store.
Therefore, it added the possibility to order goods in self-service dispensing boxes, which are placed in front of the stores and are accessible 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
IKEA is also heavily working on a new shoppable app which should be launch this year.
