Carl Aby, CEO of IKEA Spain: “We believe in low prices: we set no limits”
These are times of change at IKEA. A few days after the Spanish Juvencio Maeztu assumes the position of global CEO of the Ingka Group, parent company of the furniture and home products retailer, IKEA Spain also debuts CEO: the Swede Carl Aaby (or ‘Street’ as he is affectionately called internally) who lands in the Spanish market after a long career in the Swedish company as deputy sales and store director in the Netherlands (2012-2019), commercial director in Austria (2019-2021) and CEO of the Norwegian subsidiary since 2021. Despite the short time that has passed, he dares to launch some ideas in Spanish during the meeting with a small number of media outlets: “We believe in low prices: we set no limits, because we always want prices to be as low as possible,” he points out. The new CEO of IKEA Spain sets an ambitious goal: “We are focused on exceed 3,000 million euros in annual turnover in 10 years“, points out a roadmap full of challenges such as continuing to grow in a mature market like the Spanish one and improving logistics networks through AI.
He has been in Spain for a few weeks, but since his arrival he has not stopped. What plans do you have for IKEA Spain?
In the last three months I have been traveling around Spain and I have visited almost every neogico unit. I am very proud to have the opportunity to lead IKEA ESPAÑA in the coming years. It is an organization that inside IKEA it has fantastic results. We had a sales record last year, but for some time now IKEA Spain has shown a very innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, creating many things that have also benefited us on a global level. This year, for the first time, we will reach 2 billion of euros in turnover (the last year closed at 1,986 million euros). It’s an impressive number! Now it’s about setting the course for the future. It’s about growing at an even greater speed. We need to reach more Spaniards, even though eight out of ten Spanish homes have an IKEA product. There is still a lot of potential. Thus, we are focused on exceeding 3,000 million in annual turnover in 10 years. After 30 years of existence in Spain we are at 2,000 million, but I believe and hope that before celebrating 40 years we can reach 3,000 million.
The price is one of the issues to which you give special importance at IKEA, is there enough room to lower them further in Spain? I don’t know if you have any calculations…
We believe in low prices: we do not set limits, because we always want prices to be as low as possible. We have to see the efficiencies, how our value chain also works and make sure we can maintain a profit on sales. It is not so much a strategy of whether we are going to lower it by 10 or 15%, but rather finding that balance that allows us to continue operating while lowering prices as much as we can. To do this, we have many new tools. For example, We are trying to promote the use of AI in our workers (‘coworkers’) in their daily work to be more efficient, and we can reflect this in lower prices. Last year we grew in sales, but also in volume, and we know that this helps the entire value chain. Which allows prices to be lowered and we are dedicating 14 million euros to this.
What is the growth you mentioned going to translate into? Will there be more big stores? In urban environments?
In Spain we have expanded a lot physically. We have over 100 establishments or ‘points of contact’ now and We will continue trying to attract new customers. with smaller formats and also with our largest stores. This is what we call omnichannel. There are many ways today to reach more consumers: it is uA mix between physical and digital formats and new strategies. We will continue optimizing both, investing and growing along that path. We still have many areas in Spain where we can be much closer to our customers. There is a lot of potential.
Can you give us any figures on investment for growth in Spain that you mentioned?
In recent years we have invested 90 million in the opening of new points of sale and in improving our stores. We are now working on the strategy for the next few years, so I still cannot give an exact figure of how much we are going to invest. But I can guarantee that we are going to do it: We will invest! On November 27th we opened a new store in Vitoria and, soon, in Girona. We are also looking for locations in regions such as Catalonia, Levante, Andalusia, in the cities with the largest population… We are looking for sites for future openings without a specific objective. Therefore, it is not so much a question of having an exact number of openings, of whether we will open 10 or 20 stores. It is about find the right location with the right conditionswhich allow us to reach the correct segment and consumer. We are open to opportunities and are actively seeking them.
“Now we are working on the strategy for the next few years, so I still cannot give an exact figure of how much we are going to invest. But I can assure you that we are going to do it: We will invest!”
What news can we find in your new store in Vitoria?
It is not only a store space, but also part of our distribution network to serve our products in short delivery times for the area of Victory. In this way we add a logistics component to the ‘point of contact’, something that we have not done before in Spain. Step by step we are trying to find the best combination, which also depends on the location, especially when we enter a new location for which we need to find the best use.
So, will we see innovation in terms of formats at points of sale?
There are new formats that are being developed within Europe at the moment and we are awaiting the results. Once they are ready, we will also be prepared to launch some of these newer and simpler formats which will allow faster access and allow us to be more agile in offering much of our product range. This will continue as well as the work of looking for new ways to serve our clients in Spain as well.
