Ikea coming to Jacksonville

[Tacachale]

^I don't know about that.

[edjax]

Heck we can't even get a Crate & Barrel. Which I have to admit that ranks right up there with the no Macy's in town as in dumbfounding.

[Stephen]

I have an idea Crate and Barrel will not be far away...Its a great store

[funwithteeth]

^I don't know about that.

Yeah. A big part of IKEA's appeal is the brand. And that brand attracts a lot of business, including people who travel out of town to buy their product. (Trust me, I know people like this.)

[thelakelander]

Before they had stores in the South, my older brother actually took a road trip from Fort Lauderdale to DC, just to visit IKEA. Now that there's two in South Florida, they routinely eat at them. So yeah, there is a cult following of IKEA fans out there.

[pierre]

I usually make one trip a year down to IKEA in Orlando. The first IKEA I went to was the one outside DC about ten years ago. My wife brought an empty suitcase to prepare for our trip.

[simms3]

Cool,  it is snap together cheap furniture.   Who cares

Right! I can get that from Wal Mart

Im sure Jax has something that sellswhat IKEA has. People just want the brand name. Im Jax has alternatives.

People want an Ikea store because there is nothing else that compares. It's how they've managed to become the company they are. The Ikea brand is actually the least desirable aspect of their products.

I agree.  I don't think the IKEA brand is desirable at all.  I think people like the affordable aspect, and as a shopper there for many years now (10 and counting), I like finding interesting furniture that doesn't "look" so cheap (at casual glance), but has cheap IKEA prices.  The whole point of IKEA is the Crate & Barrel look for 1/3 to 1/2 the price.

The other aspect that works for IKEA is not the name branding, but the country branding.  Swedish is "in" right now.  I can tell you, as a Swede, that most of the food served in IKEA or sold in the food store near check out is CRAP.  I will not touch those nasty meat balls and half of the food sold in the Swedish grocer is not really Swedish at all...often American crap with a Swedish name.  I continue to buy their furniture, however, and the general look and feel of IKEA seems plenty contemporary Swedish to me (or Euro in general).

Jax doesn't have the people for the store.  They rely on massive volume, and even Orlando is a small market for them.  There is certainly a reason they want 2+ million people within 40 miles of a store.  Orlando's store probably survives on Gainesville, Tallahassee, and Jax business in addition to Orlando business.

Metro Atlanta has just 1 store, for an idea (1 for 6 million people in immediate area plus those millions living in surrounding cities like Birmingham, Greenville-Spartanburg, Nashville, Knoxville, etc etc)

NorCal (11 million people between SF, SJ, and Sac all within 1 hour drive, plus a couple million more in area) has 3...so that's almost 4 million to a store.

SoCal has 5 for over 21 million people between LA, IE, and SD, so over 4 million to a store.

Phoenix/AZ has 1, so 6.6 million in AZ, mostly in Phoenix, plus NM and probably Las Vegas if they choose not to head over to LA.

Seattle has 1, and that's about 4 million people.

Dallas-Fort Worth has only 1 for all 7 million people in that area.

Houston has 1 for all 6 million people in that area.  Plus they probably pull from NOLA and AR/LA cities.

Austin has 1 for both it and San Antonio (4-5 million people there).

Chicagoland with 10 million people has only 2, so 5 million people to a store, not to mention another couple million from Milwaukee and a 4 million more for STL and points in between.

There are 2 between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to serve IN, OH, western PA, northern KY, etc etc.

The Bos-Wash corridor is also pretty dry for the dozens of millions of people it has.


I would be SHOCKED if Jax could support another IKEA.  They seem to love the 5-10 million person to a store kind of captured market, with at least 2 million within immediate 30 minute drive.

[vicupstate]

Simms3, you've got it all wrong.  Jax is going to get an Ikea any day now, right next to the Downtown Nordstrom. 

Ikea is very 'neat' the first time you go, but after 3-4 visits it is a 'been there, done that ' thing to me.  Charlotte has a store, which is about 2 million people, but it definitely draws from as far as Greenville SC, and Greensboro NC, so theres that. I think they tend to look for a certain level of affluence/youth in the metro areas they choose too.   The college, post-college demographic is probably very important to them.

[Avondaleman]

How do you explain Salt Lake City having an IKEA? Their metro population has less than 2 million. I agree, it has to do with demographics and large population of youth.

[thelakelander]

Salt Lake City's Combined Statistical Area (includes Provo and Orem) has a population of 2,350,274 with a +3.46% growth rate. Jacksonville's Combined Statistical Area (includes Palatka and Camden County, GA) has a population of 1,502,515, with a growth rate of +2.18%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Combined_Statistical_Areas

[finehoe]

The other aspect that works for IKEA is not the name branding, but the country branding.  Swedish is "in" right now.  I can tell you, as a Swede, that most of the food served in IKEA or sold in the food store near check out is CRAP.  I will not touch those nasty meat balls and half of the food sold in the Swedish grocer is not really Swedish at all...often American crap with a Swedish name.  I continue to buy their furniture, however, and the general look and feel of IKEA seems plenty contemporary Swedish to me (or Euro in general).

Although IKEA household products and furniture are designed in Sweden, they are largely manufactured in developing countries to keep costs down. China accounts for about 2½ times as much supply as Sweden.

[tufsu1]

The Bos-Wash corridor is also pretty dry for the dozens of millions of people it has.

So having 11 stores between those two cities is considered dry?

[PeeJayEss]

The Bos-Wash corridor is also pretty dry for the dozens of millions of people it has.

So having 11 stores between those two cities is considered dry?

50 million or so people, so they would need at least 20 more stores in that area before getting to the population per store of a Jacksonville location.

[simms3]

The other thing to consider is shopping habits.  I believe Orlando has a store because of Jax, and that it draws all of N FL, including two large college towns.

However, if Jax gets a store, it dilutes the N FL customer base, so that it really is a borderline 2 million person demographic for each city (and not necessarily within 30-40 miles).  What Jax store won't capture is points further north.  Atlanta will always be the go-to for virtually all errands for Savannah, Charleston, Macon, Columbus, Augusta, Columbia SC, Montgomery AL, etc etc.  When they go to shop IKEA in Atlanta, they can get other chores/shopping errands done and make a trip of it (restaurants, activities, and nightlife they cannot get in their own towns nor can they really get in Jax, either).  Atlanta will probably get a 2nd store as a result before Jax gets a single store.  My guess.


Also, Salt Lake City is actually a much larger metro than Jax.  Anyone who has flown in to ski or visit some national parks or just to go quickly realizes this.  Their MSA should be what their CSA is, it's all highly connected (by rail I might add), not to mention they are the only large metro area for a large geography that also includes Boise, ID and other western towns.  As the hub of Mormon land (with 2 large universities in the city to boot), SLC's pull is massive.  SLC, Denver, and Boise are all rapidly growing, highly progressive cities by American standards, with relatively excellent transit and pedestrian cultures and booming urban cores.  I put them all on another level (not to get too off topic - but each is worth a visit, I have yet to go to Denver).  No surprise that SLC has an IKEA, as does Denver.  As does Sacramento, which is a much larger metro than Jax as well with very consistent development between it and the Bay Area (so Sac is a pull for North Bay and some East Bay customers and there are millions more in that area than NE FL).  Same with Portland and Seattle - each is a much larger hub than Jax for a larger region than NEFL and each has no immediate competition (like Orlando AND Atlanta are to Jax).

[thelakelander]

The other thing to consider is shopping habits.  I believe Orlando has a store because of Jax, and that it draws all of N FL, including two large college towns.

Orlando could easily support a store regardless of if Jax existed or not. When I worked in Lakeland, they used to promote that they were in the center of everything because there was something like 7 million people living within a 100-mile radius of that city. Add the amount of tourist drawn to that region on an annual basis and that consumer market really swells. With that in mind, a few years after the Orlando IKEA opened, a second Central Florida store opened in Tampa, which is roughly 1-1.5 hours or so down the street.