Malm for days.
Attending IKEA is an experience.
It’s emotional, it’s sad, it’s exciting, it’s upsetting, it’s stressful, it’s anxiety inducing, it’s rewarding.
The fun part is going there, marking down all your bits, and imaging what your home could be like if you actually had money/wanted to purchase anything else other than a cheap bedside dresser and a few metres of fairy lights.
But what if you had unlimited money for IKEA bits? Or, better yet, what if you didn’t need unlimited money for IKEA furniture because you could just rent it?
The dream, right.
Right.
Fortunately for us, IKEA are indeed trialling a rental service in some of their biggest markets to make sustainable furniture more of a thing – and it’s a class idea in fairness.
Reuters reports that the home store giant made the decision to branch out into rental in the knowledge that most of their customers move home often, and can’t afford to buy new furniture each time.
“You should be able to have a lovely home, and a good conscience, and you should be able to afford it,” said, Jesper Brodin, chief executive of Ingka Group.
He also said that the company want to move in a more environmentally conscious direction, reshaping their brand to focus on affordability, convenience, and looking after the planet.
IKEA stores in the Netherlands are already offering students the chance to rent necessary furniture like a desk, bed, table, and chairs for €30 a month, while stores in the Sweden and Switzerland are considering renting to offices and businesses.
Finance chief Juvencio Maeztu said that the company want to expand, but they also want their customers to share more.
“In New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Tokyo, Shanghai, Mumbai, we will see more of these mid-sized stores in the future,” he said.
“In the next 20 years, more people will live in cities and own fewer cars and share more.”
