The region’s leading Swedish home furnishing retailer, IKEA, a part of the Al-Futtaim Group, has always kept the many people at the heart of its business. As we enter 2021 and with the aim of creating a better everyday life, IKEA is inspiring people to bring more ease and joy into their physical and mental space by reorganising their lives. The Swedish retailer promises to provide consumers with ideas and solutions for every space; whether it is where the kids play, where they dress, sleep, eat or just life at home.
For the many, home is where the heart is. When it comes to life at home, people hoard on to things that are eventually hidden in drawers, cupboards, and closets or just kept in the open due to the lack of space. To understand the mindset of consumers and importance of decluttering in their lives, as a part of the launch of its new season, IKEA hosted an independent research of more than 1,000 people. The survey revealed that on average, people in the UAE declutter their homes once a week. Respondents also agreed that a powerful way to bring more ease and joy into their physical and mental space is decluttering. Almost half of the respondents wanted to declutter to make their interiors more relaxing and one third (35%) would be willing to get rid of their unused belongings and rearrange to make a more airy and open space.
The pandemic impacted life at home for the many people. People started spending more time at home, sharing spaces and home décor became priority. Continuous investment on home interiors became an ongoing trend. With spaces becoming more functional, IKEA asked consumers why they would declutter their homes. More than half said this would increase their productivity while over 40% accepted being inspired by homes of family and friends and achieve better sleeping habits.
Despite the changing trends, almost half of the survey respondents agreed that the Living Room and Bedroom remain the most important rooms to be decluttered. Amongst the items that are decluttered in these rooms, Clothes (57%) and Shoes (30%) topped the list. A third of the respondents also agreed that kid’s toys are decluttered as often as once a week but only 19% spend time decluttering this room. This highlights the need of inspiring people to invest in organising solutions that will help them maximise usage of space.
Of the different solutions available, 42% agreed to using shelves across all rooms to reorganize. Over a third (35%) of female respondents are using the extra space under beds and sofas to reorganise therefore making smart use of every area in their home.
Amongst other things, working from home is increasingly common all around the world. One third of the respondents agreed to declutter in order to create multi-functional spaces where various activities can be incorporated such as work video calls.
Commenting on the survey and IKEA’s seasonal launch, Carla Klumpenaar, GM Marketing, Communications & Interior Design at IKEA – Al Futtaim, UAE, Egypt, Oman said, “Through simple ideas that deliver a big impact, with inspiring experiences, seamless solutions, and smart ideas, we want to enable people to have a better everyday life at home. It was important to reach out to the many people to understand how we could help them replace chaos with order. The survey results made us confident of our initiative and through new ideas we want to motivate them to start cleaning out, sorting, displaying, hiding, recycling or even simply donating. We welcome you all to our stores; to a season of a more organized you!”
IKEA has constantly developed its products and services to cater to the changing needs of its customers. To reach the more of the many people and have a positive impact on lives, IKEA added new services to its E-Commerce platform to make the shopping experience easier.
‘’Not only do we want to be affordable, accessibility is key to our successful business. We launched our home planning and interior design services early last year to help customers revamp their space from the luxury of their own homes. In line with the growing demand for contactless shopping and digital payment solutions amongst consumers, our ‘Click and Collect’ service allowed our customers across the country to collect their online purchases conveniently from the comfort of their cars. We partnered with TABBY to provide customers with flexible interest-free instalments payment plan for their online and in-store purchases. Our home delivery charges are the lowest in the region and also includes cash on delivery options. Our paid picking service has reduced the shopping time as customers can create a shopping list which will be picked by a co-worker and ready for collection’’, she added.
