IKEA Welcomes Decathlon Into Its Stores | Fast Five Shorts

Ikea is opening its iconic blue box stores to other retailers for the first time, announcing that French sporting goods giant Decathlon will open a standalone store within a store at ikea's Croydon location in the UK this spring.

According to Reuters and Inka Group, the Decathlon location will occupy just under 1200 square meters with its own dedicated entrance inside IKEA's 25,000 square meter Croydon store.

With doors set to open this spring.

Inka Group, the world's largest Ikea franchise, confirmed that this is the first time a major global brand has been hosted inside one of its blue box stores.

Those smaller pilots with Nordics electronics retailer Keel Co.

Ran into Swedish IKEA stores last year.

Commercial manager Javier Quinones said, quote, our ambition is to become as accessible as ever and give customers more reason to visit us wherever they are on their home journey.

End quote.

Joanna, put you in putting you on the spot this week.

Are you buying or selling the idea of buying sporting goods while shopping at ikea?

I'm going to isolate the buying sporting goods while buying a sofa for a second and just say I am all for the idea of trying to monetize extra excess space in these big boxes that IKEA has.

Right.

They were built for a certain time.

They now have these mammoth stores that require a mammoth assortment to fill.

And so I think we recognizing that there might be another way to drive traffic while monetizing that makes makes good sense.

Now whether Decathlon is right or not, I think there's, you know, a little bit IKEA and Decathlon customers tend to be, you know, focused more on sort of value oriented consumers who are making lifestyle purchases.

So there's a little bit of harmony that that makes sense.

Makes sense there to me.

But also the philosophy of turning stores into destinations and I think we're seeing this in a variety of ways.

A couple weeks ago or last month rather on on Omni Talk, you all were talking about the regional grocers with the beer garden and trying to just turn it into a destination.

You know, people going to IKEA and dining there and using it as a place for dining?

My my local IKEA hosts trivia nights.

So, you know, am I thinking about assembling a cabinet while doing bar trivia?

No.

But does it make it a destination for people who then, you know, may end up going there that weren't otherwise going to or pick up something along the way maybe.

And so I think it's in that same vein.

Now there's some lessons to be learned because we've seen others try and do this.

And we've seen Nick's success, Kohl's and Sephora, tremendous, strong financial performance in their success story of kind of a store within a store.

Different when we talk about Target and Ulta and the fact that that partnership is ending in August.

And so it's mixed as to the success of it.

The one, the one big thing, though, that stood out was the emphasis on a dedicated entrance to decathlon, which did feel a little bit like it was undercutting the idea of getting people into Ikea so that.

That I had a little bit more of a question mark on feels.

Mollish.

All right, so I'm going to.

Put your feet to the fire.

Put your feet to the fire.

Do you think this experiment works and that we will see more decathlons inside of IKEA's in the next five to 10 years?

I think we will likely see more stores within Ikea's.

Whether they're decathlons or not, I don't know.

But I think they are massive.

They are kind of malls within malls to your point.

And so I would not be surprised if we started seeing more of that trend.

So we'll see more of the shop within the shop.

It's just, I would not be surprised

the cocktail that they want to use that works with their brand.

Okay.

Correct.

All right, all right.

I'm going to come out and say it like, I summarily hate this partnership.

Like, I just do.

I think it flies in the face of why I go to ikea.

I've said this on this show so many times.

You go there because you have to get the chore of furniture shopping done most of the time.

You have to do that on the weekends.

It's a long trip, which is why it's good to have food there and you can get your Swedish meatballs at a low price.

Sporting goods.

Buying sporting goods are not part of checking that chore off of my to do list.

They're just.

They're just not.

I'd much rather see things like, to your point, Joanna, I'd much rather see things like, why don't you bring TVs into the store, IKEA?

I mean, there's an idea or like how to install a security system or get your lawn and snow removal services, you know, all set up here as you're moving into your house, whatever it is.

There's so many different ideas that I would go after before I would think about sporting goods.

But, Cassie, talk me off the ledge.

Tell me if I'm right.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

What am I missing?

I have to agree with you, Chris.

And so I think it's a strategy kind of disguised by just.

Ikea is becoming a landlord.

They have boxes that are too big.

People are increasingly buying furniture online, so, you know, their assortments not needing to be as large in stores.

And so I think saying that this is a strategic play, that you're.

You're not coming to buy a soccer ball at the same time I'm buying, you know, a dresser.

It just doesn't make sense.

And I think that is why they're stressing the independent entrance.

And so that, to me, just flagged landlord, not.

This is truly, you know, a concept that we want to continue to, you know, evolve with decathlon.

It's as we have space that we can repurpose, we will find the best tenant for it.

And as long as it is complementary enough, we can.

We can say that this is the strategy.

I just don't fully see it as, you know, becoming one.

I'm going.

Going to this Ikea for the same purpose as going to decathlon.

Yeah.

And in eight years of doing this show, I think you just summed it up perfectly.

Whenever you're asking the question, am I a landlord or a retailer, it generally doesn't work.

So that's just my one caveat here.