Ikea To Sell Electronics?

It starts in Europe, but you know it’ll expand.

So it appears that Ikea is starting with a specialty-manufactured TV in China, and Magnus Bodesson, the guy in charge of living rooms (and who’s name may be as cool as Baldur Bjarnson and Richard Baldovin) notes the advantages Ikea has in pricing.

Ikea selling electronics actually makes sense:

  • They have the floorspace and warehouse space.
  • They do a lot of home elements that aren’t furniture despite their image as a furniture company.
  • They already promote their furniture with mockups of TVs, etc. in their stores anyway – and as they sell “complete sets,” electronics plays into it.
  • They have insanely huge reach.

So I’m pretty sure they’ll prototype this, it’ll work or break even, and they’ll go and try more.  You know who gets in trouble?

Best Buy.

Ikea could, with relative ease, throw in a lot of basic electronics and home goods.  They could do their own brands/rebrands, but it might also be easier to use local/popular brands.  They have a supply chain that works.  They have money.  People are already in a shopping mood when they come in.

So if they start moving TV’s and other home devices, Best Buy is the one that takes the big hit in my opinion.  Admittedly it’d probably take Ikea awhile to ramp this up (1-3 years), so there’s a chance for Best Buy to implode on its own.  But if they’re still playing in the home electronics space, this could be a finishing blow.

I never saw Ikea getting into this space.  Makes me wonder what else I’m missing . . .

Steven Savage