The very first Swedish store IKEA in India, established in Hyderabad, has seen a humongous crowd of over 40,000 people on the very first day of its inauguration. The overwhelming beeline of this crowd had got the IKEA staff struggling with the entrance management.
Though the store was initiated with good planning and management strategy, the 4,00,000 sq. ft. store couldn’t manage the unexpected response. IKEA got the buyers struggling with insufficient parking space. The lack of parking space not only caused the trouble of buyers but also halted a huge traffic in the area.
IKEA store in Hyderabad had an average waiting time of 3-4 hours to enter the store. The queue waiting at the entry to enter the mall was not any different from the queues at Tirumala Darshan. The entrance gate of IKEA can be best compared to human stampede.
The wide range of food varieties at affordable prices attracted IKEA visitors but the 1000-seater-food-court was not able to accommodate the unexpected number of visitors.
As an end note, IKEA Hyderabad received a mixed review by the IKEA visitors, as some are amazed by the store’s audacity while the remaining considered it as just another shopping mall.
