IKEA Case Study and Marketing Strategies in Singapore  

 

 

 

Team DRM 1/14  

 

Fitrisna Simatupang Mas Nurul Azurin Binte Radin Mas Ismail

James Yue Kar Fei Edward Bu Teck Hua  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents  

1.0 Executive Summary 2.0 Ikea Company Profile 3.0 Ikea’s current segmentation bases and target markets 3.1 Geographic Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets 3.2 Demographic Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets 3.3 Psychographic Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets 3.4 Behavioral Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets 3.5 IKEA’s Positioning Strategy 4.0 Customer Value Provided by IKEA 4.1 Best Product Value Provided by IKEA 4.2 Best Service Value Provided by IKEA 5.0 Marketing Program Proposal 5.1 Product Strategies 5.2 Price Strategies 5.3 Promotion Strategies 5.4 Place Strategies 6.0 Conclusion 7.0 References  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.0 Executive Summary IKEA being a household name established since 1943 had more than doubled its’ revenue over the last decade. With near to 70% of the total sales coming from Europe, Asia remains as IKEA’s “last frontier”. The challenge is elevated with China as the world’s manufacturing engine, India as global innovation chain, Japan as global quality leader and many other countries within Asia shifting to higher gear reaching out aggressively for a share in the global furniture market.  

However, IKEA can overcome these challenges by leveraging on the company’s culture and steers toward its’ guiding beacon of “offering low price functional products with Do-it-yourself concept and reaching out to as many people as possible (IKEA’s philosophy)”.  

Cities in Asia are growing phenomenally with housing demand outstripping the pace of supply. In most cities, these sudden growth of housing demand are fuelled by investors who will rent out the unit upon building completion. This resulted in owners or tenants not willing to purchase new furnitures due to short term stay. IKEA has to focus their sales in countries that have high number of homeownership who stays in the unit. This will allow the company to maximise sales potential.  

Singapore has more than a million units of government-built housing with 87.2% home ownership. This number is projected to grow with the government announcement of future housing plan. Therefore, Singapore is well position to be the main city in asia for IKEA to launch a new concept of furniture specifically for the local market needs. Although Singapore’s government is building more public housing, the total floor area per unit is getting smaller. Escalating housing cost coupled with shrinking floor-size are pushing end-consumers towards a “Swiss-Army multi-purpose tool” types of furnitures. IKEA applied the similar concept with its’ range of sofa-beds but is missing out consumer's needs with bedrooms convertible furnitures. By capitalising on its strength of easy transportability (Flat-packing) and ease of assembly (clear assembly instructions with required tools), IKEA will be able to offer this space saving convertible furniture to both existing customers and also reach out to new group of customers who are interested only in space saving convertible furnitures.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.0 IKEA company profile IKEA was established by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. It was not until 1948 that furniture

became their main product offering. The company has now expanded to 345 stores in 42 countries around the world. Their philosophy is to offer low prices of functional products with Do-it-yourself concept and reaching out to as many people as possible. Do-it-yourself concept includes self-transportation and self-assembly. However, IKEA does provide both services for a fee (Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2014j). Inter IKEA Systems B. V. (2014h) quotes the company employs more than 139,000 employees of which Europe has 99,000, North America has 18,000, Asia & Australia have 11,000 and the rest of 11,000 in Russia. The various Sales statistic of IKEA includes:  

Total Revenue in EUR billion 2001-2012

Source extracted from http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_SG/pdf/yearly_summary/ys_welcome_inside_2012.pdf on 19June 2014  

 

3.0 Ikea’s current segmentation bases and target markets Market Segmentation is a process that divides a big group of potential buyers into sub groups with the same needs and wants. This is to match buyers’ expectations into the different targeted segments. There are many different ways to segment a market. But the most basic and common ways especially for big companies that are able to provide the

needs for the entire market are through the traditional market segmentations which is Geographical Segmentation, Demographic Segmentation, Psychographic Segmentation and lastly Behavioral Segmentation (Kerin, Lau, Hartley & Rudelius, 2013). With that above, IKEA is able to identify new and different product by studying the particular needs of customers in contrast to which segment the customers belong to. Hence, the market segmentation that IKEA uses includes lifestyles, family life cycle, age, income level and credibility. Furthermore, IKEA is known for having a huge product market and that naturally taps on multiple target markets (Bartlett, Dessain & Sjöman, 2006). 3.1 Geographic Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets Geographic segmentation as defined by Kerin, Hartley, Rudelius and Lau (2013) is about splitting the market based on locations. Global market can be split into countries or regions and further divided into cities or areas. IKEA now have 345 stores that are open and operating across 42 countries that covers regions like Australia, Middle East, North America, Asia and Europe (Inter IKEA systems B.V, 2013a).  

As shown in Figure 1, IKEA’s sales are largely generated from Europe (69%), North America (16%), Asia and Australia (8%), followed by Russia (6%) in the year 2013 (Citation).  

Figure 1: 2013 IKEA Sales Per Region  

Source: Extracted from http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CA/pdf/yearly_summary/ikea-group-yearly-summary-fy13.pdf on 08/06/14  

3.2 Demographic Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets Armstrong and Kotler (2005) describes the term demographic segmentation as groups based division of the market into on variables such as gender, family size, income, education, family life-cycle, occupation, age, race, nationality and even religion. IKEA’s development team are certain that the pricing of the company’s products are low enough so that the products can be reached out to the majority (Inter IKEA systems B.V., 2013c). This is a huge target market for consumers who are from the low to mid income families. The younger generation for they are more price sensitive thus the purchasing power is very much limited. IKEA’s furniture is also often known as “start-up furniture” for

consumers who are buying them for first home. 3.3 Psychographic Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets Psychographic segmentation is groups based market division on lifestyle, personality and social class (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005). Psychographic segmentation can also be seen in IKEA’s products which posses simple features while emphasizing on the products’ functions, value and design (Ringstorm, 2012). The products attract people who appreciate functionality and would prefer furniture that have minimal but also fresh designs and not forgetting price conscious. This segment of the market does not expect furniture to be long-lasting therefore substituting or adding of furniture would be an easy and fast decision for the customers (Ivythesis.com, 2010). Instead of spending more money for long lasting and good quality products, customers would rather spend the exact amount of money to change the house’ furniture a couple of times (Ivythesis.com, 2010). 3.4 Behavioral Segmentation and IKEA Target Markets Behavioral segmentation as defined by Kerin, Hartley, Rudelius and Lau (2013) is about dividing the market into groups based on consumers’ response to a product, knowledge and attitude. By combining these different behavioral variables, it gives the marketers the possibility of getting a view of the market and the different consumer segments therefore the marketer can improve its targeting strategies (Kotler & Keller, 2009). IKEA targets the company’s consumers with a “do-it-yourself and save money doing it” lifestyle. The company’s purpose for that is because these are the consumers who do not mind travelling and fixing up their own furniture in order to save some money. These are also the group of consumers that would benefit greatly from the value of IKEA’s products due to the quality at a decent low price (kevinrjohnson.weebly.com, 2009). 3.5 IKEA’s Positioning Strategy Michman (2003) defines positioning strategy as helping consumers evaluate the products’ features that are valuable and significant to the consumers. IKEA’s positioning strategy is found on their philosophy “Your partner in better living”. Differentiation is IKEA’s positioning strategy. According to Kotler (2000) differentiation is an act that designs a set of valuable differences to characterize the company’s offerings from competitors’ offerings. The five dimensions of Differentiation are:  

 ● Personnel – companies can gain a strong advantage through having well-trained

staffs. ● Channel – distribution channels’ expertise, performance and coverage can be

designed to gain advantage for the company. ● Product – physical products differs in their potential for differentiation. ● Image – Customer react differently to brand and company images. Identity consists

of the ways that a company want to position or identify itself or its products, whereas image is how the public sees the company or its products.

● Services – when product differentiation is not clear, value-added services and quality improvement can helpm with product competitiveness.

 IKEA associate with its customers by ensuring that customers are able to save money yet are being offered functional, stylish and low-costing home furnishings and customers must fix it themselves. IKEA saves money on manufacturing and distribution by making the customers fix their own furnitures. IKEA compensates customers for having to do-it-themselves by adding extra services like restaurants, in-store childcare and play areas, and longer operating hours. 4.0 Customer Value Provided by IKEA IKEA’S culture is based on shared values that has Customer Focus as the underlying theme. IKEA’s values are: (a) Accept and delegate responsibility; (b) leadership by example; (c) Cost consciousness; (d) Togetherness and enthusiasm; (e) Daring to be different; (f) Constant desire for renewal; (g) Humbleness and willpower; IKEA’s leaders and co-workers are guided by these values in setting company’s strategy to take advantage of the business potential of the company at all levels (Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2014e).  These values work hand in hand with “IKEA Way on Purchasing Home Furnishing Products” which is within the framework of environmental and social responsibility. Environmental protection, working conditions and child labour are IKEA's minimum requirement for code of conduct for all their suppliers. Among which IKEA is especially concern with a specific code of conduct for child labour, method of distributing home furnishing products and method of food procurement (Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2014f).  

 

4.1 Best Product Value Provided by IKEA IKEA has successfully differentiated their products apart from their competitors and created a brand name expressing IKEA's Values. The company is able to identify products important attributes not just in accordance to industries but more importantly to their customers. IKEA surveys and listens to their customers’ view on competitors’ products based on those important attributes and identifies their product’s position in the customers’ mind. This has allowed IKEA to re-position their products to meet the needs and wants of their customers spot on (Isaksson and Suljanovic, 2006). In order to maintain cost leadership, IKEA has a wide range of suppliers for materials and design. Low cost and ready-to-assemble are two guiding beacons for all IKEA’s product right from the beginning of design stage. Cost saving is optional for customers with self-delivery and self-assembly of products. By 2020 IKEA will be 100% renewable – producing as much renewable energy as the company consume using renewable sources. Ensuring that all buildings are more efficient thereby require less energy to operate (Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2014g). 4.2 Best Service Value Provided by IKEA Inter IKEA Systems B. V. (2014h) quotes IKEA has successfully transformed from a product focus business to a service focus business by providing solutions to real-life problems. The physical products are but platforms where IKEA builds up with company’s values and transformed them into IKEA’s services. With this service-oriented direction, IKEA design,

position and price their product towards the hearts and minds of their customers by providing professionally designed interiors for free through showroom layout sample. Most of the company’s products are designed and manufactured with easy transportability (Flat-packing) and ease of assembly (clear assembly instructions with required tools), customers’ cost saving is made possible through self-transporting and self-assembling of products. IKEA does not simply showcase their products but rather went to the extent of building up an environment that will allow customer to truly “test-drive” the overall concept. This is as good as visiting a friend’s home to witness the true functionalities of various products. Options for different configuration, sizes and colours are made possible with web-based experience similar to IKEA ‘kitchen-planner’. Technological tools deployed by IKEA provides not just the aesthetic purposes but also the functional controls to ensure that selected products fit together within the allocated space. Selected products/modules may be printed as a shopping list with product codes if the customer choose to self-deliver and assemble. This pre-purchase service will allow customers to experience potential service solution before committing to purchase (Edvardsson, Enquist & Johnston, 2005).  

 

 

 

 

5.0 Marketing Program Proposal From Geographic Segmentation analysis under section 3.1, IKEA has great potential for further growth in Asia's market. Singapore stands out under the spotlight with its’ high population growth rate. Growing from a total population of 2 millions to 5 millions within half a century, the nation is geared for further growth as it plan for “A Lively and Liveable City” (Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Government of Singapore. 2014)  

Source extracted from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/publications_and_papers/population_and_population_structure/population2013.pdf on 19June 2014 5.1 Product Strategies IKEA specializes in inexpensive but stylish Scandinavian designed furniture and is one of world’s largest furniture retailer. Other than furniture, IKEA also sell utility items such as hooks, clips, utensils, stands, etc. IKEA became successful due to its many years of experience in the furniture retail market and cost leadership. The key elements of IKEA’s winning formula includes simplicity, high quality, Scandinavian design; global sourcing of components, knock-down furniture kits that customers transport assemble themselves;

huge suburban stores with plenty of parking and amenities like coffee shops, restaurants, and even day care facilities (Normann & Ramfrez, 1993). Every IKEA building is structured in a way whereby the customers are supplied with pencils, catalogues, tape measures and note paper at the entrance. The products displayed in the store are grouped together, and labeled with the name and and price of the product; the dimensions and the different colours in which it is available. Customers are also able to customize their furniture with the help from both the IKEA personnels at the store itself, and even via online. This is because every customer has their own unique tastes and ideas, and mass customization is able to provide higher customer value through allowing customers to fine tune their purchases according to their preferences. IKEA should adopt the ‘glocalization’ as one of their strategies to tap into the different country target markets to accommodate to different needs and wants of their customers. The term ‘glocalization’ are formed by “telescoping global and local to make a blend”, according to The Oxford Dictionary of New Words (1991, p.134) and Robertson (1995). The idea of glocalization refers to the advertisement and customization of goods and services on a global or near-global basis to differentiated particular local markets. Specifically in markets such as Singapore, IKEA can cater to the demands from smaller living spaces. Convertible furniture which are space-saving, multi-purpose and transformable will be in high demand. These furniture would cater to consumers who are facing limited space in their home and love unique imported design. Ikea’s range of convertible furniture is very limited. Although it does have a wide range of sofa-Beds but its’ focus is more “Functional” than “Space-saving”. The concepts and needs for space-saving furnitures are fueled by raising land cost and smaller living space in major cities like Singapore (Bloomberg L.P.,2014). Competitor like Spaceman had developed a wide range of convertible furniture focusing on Space saving functions but they do not have the option for customer to self deliver and self assemble (Spaceman, 2014). By capitalising on its strength of easy transportability (Flat-packing) and ease of assembly (clear assembly instructions with required tools), IKEA will be able to offer this space saving convertible furniture to both existing customers and also reach out to new group of customers who are interested only in space saving convertible furnitures. 5.2 Price Strategies Upon bringing these new range of furnitures into the Singapore market, IKEA should look into the range of prices their competitors are providing and thus coming up with even better prices to attract customers. One of IKEA’s competitors in Singapore, Spaceman, price their products on the higher range, approximately a $1000 and above. However, this is because their designs are more complex so requires the staff to assemble the furniture for customers and also delivery. IKEA, on the other hand, are able to price their items lower as they simply allow their customers to do self assembly for their purchased furnitures. Pricing strategies are important as they determine how many customers are going to purchase IKEA’s new products or continue buying its existing products. All businesses set prices based on the competitors, product quality and customer-buying preferences (Marn, Roegner & Zawada, 2003)

One strategy is market-penetration pricing which involves pricing a product significantly lower than its competitors to generate buyer interest and help to secure wide market acceptance. It is usually adopted when the company expects competition with similar range of products within a short time. Usually after an organization increases its market share and has established a reputation for the quality of the product, it can start to increase the prices to drive higher profit margins. IKEA should consider adopting this strategy as it works when companies are trying out new products in underserved markets in which the customers are looking for bargains and in which there is a demand for such products.  

 

5.3 Promotion Strategies Convertible furniture is about transforming one furniture to another. With this, the new product can ride on the latest trend of the movie show “Transformer”. Positioning statement  

● Television advertisement A short advertisement video of convertible furniture transforming into a figure defeating other furniture in term of space saving and trendy can be create to attract consumers attention. These advertisement can be insert into time slot during popular shows of all channels which include Channel 8, channel 5, okto, channel U, Suraia and Vasantham (MediaCorp Pte Ltd. 2010).  

● Digital advertising Since 2005, Activa Media is one of the providers for Internet based marketing services. Its the only agency to be certified as the Premier SME Partner for Preferred Reseller for Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords. The company offer a range of online services consist of marketing to customized website design on leading online platforms including Yahoo, MSN (Bing), Facebook and google (Activa Media Pte Ltd. 2014).  

● Print advertisement Annually, ikea give out free catalogue to every household in Singapore. By placing and adding the new product into the catalogue, it will create awareness to the consumers that ikea is coming out with convertible furniture (Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2014i).  

● Bus shelter and public transport advertisement Compared to other Out-Of-Home formats, advertising at bus shelter have proved to be the highest perceived exposure. At an average, masses spent 40% of the day Out-Of-Home, 21% spent in travelling and 100% will pass by a Clear Channel bus shelter. Research has shown that advertising at bus shelter is effective and will generate fast recollection resulting in brand awareness and high exposure near Point-Of-Sales. Advertising at bus shelter provides a continuous, effective advertising

presence as it is everywhere in the island wide. No other advertising medium is able to reaches the masses like bus shelters do (Clear Channel Singapore. 2011).  

SMRT Media is ranked as Singapore’s number one local Out-Of-Home media company and the advertising arm of SMRT Corporation Ltd. The company offers advertisers island-wide reach and coverage of the MRT network, covering the East West (EW), North South (NS) and Bukit Panjang Light Rapid Transit (LRT) as well as the Circle LIne. (SMRT Corporation Pte Ltd . 2014)

● Smartphone Application As smartphones continue to be increasingly important in our daily. Offering augmented reality experiences in a mobile becoming increasing important as it will likely to be the main way to reaches the consumers in the future (MANSUETO VENTURES. 2014). By combining augmented reality with any advertisement above, it can create a virtual 3D image of the product and see how is it like in a 360 degree angle or even link to advertisment videos  

5.4 Place Strategies In order to maximise sales potential for space saving convertible furniture, the potential locations to launch the products should meet various conditions such as high land cost, high number of existing housing with small living space, high number of smaller new flat and High home ownership (non-rental).  

• Place of selling In the next coming years, the government will be expanding the north area of Singapore and more HDB flats will be build. Hence, a third store should be taken into consideration to be open at that area for convenience to the people who is living at that area (Housing & Development Board, 2014)  

• Online Store Online store could be set up to cater for consumers who shop online as currently it is not available in Singapore. Research had shown that there is a great number increase in online shoppers from 2003 to 2012. It could also cater to consumers who is too busy and find it time consuming to visit the physical stores. Online exclusive offer or free delivery upon certain amount of order could be use to attract online shoppers. Delivery and tracking system should be set up so that customer could check on their order status.  

 

 

Source extracted from http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infocomm-Landscape/Facts-and-Figures/Infocomm-Usage-Households-and-Individuals on 30/06/14  

6.0 Conclusion  

In conclusion, IKEA should come up with an even wider range of convertible furnitures as the demand is high in a country like Singapore where the houses are generally space-limited. At the same time, IKEA should still adopt its product strategy which is to provide mass customization so as to still allow its customers to have control on their appearance of their desired furniture. The penetration pricing strategy should be a strategy which IKEA should adopt upon introducing this new range of furniture into the market so as to attract customers due to the lower prices compared to its competitors. Promotional strategies should include media advertising, which includes having attractive advertisements during popular showtimes on the popular channels in Singapore such as Channel 5, Channel 8, Suria and Vasantham.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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