IKEA to close seven stores in China amid strategy shift
Furniture retailer IKEA is closing seven stores in China as it moves from “scale expansion to precision cultivation.”
IKEA said in a post on its official WeChat account that one of the stores scheduled to close from February 2 is located in a Shanghai suburb, another in Guangzhou, and a few more in second-tier Chinese cities such as Nantong, Xuzhou and Harbin.
Retailers are generally struggling to boost sales in China, where consumer confidence has been muted following a protracted housing crisis and concerns about employment security and stagnant wages.
There are about 40 IKEA stores in mainland China, and the company said five new stores of various sizes have recently opened.
China, the world’s second largest economy, accounts for about 3.5 percent of IKEA’s global sales.
With an increasing percentage of sales coming from online flagships in the country, IKEA opened a new store on JD.com last August to help boost online sales growth.
“We will transition from scale expansion to precision cultivation, explore Beijing and Shenzhen as key markets, and open more than 10 small stores in the next two years,” IKEA said, adding that new store openings in Dongguan and Beijing are expected in the first half of 2026.
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