European Local Transport Information Service

Freetrailer - 01-07-2008

IKEA goes biking (Denmark)
Copenhagen   (Denmark)
IKEA one of the biggest box retails and synonym for urban sprawl is now starting a new concept at their Danish stores. It has invented bikes that will pull trailers so that customers can ride home with the new purchases.

 

Background & Objectives

Due to the fact that IKEA in Denmark did a market research they found out that about 20 percent of its customers ride their bicycles to the stores although most of them are located outside the cities. In Copenhagen there are two IKEA’s that are 10 to 20 kilometres away from the city centre. Nevertheless many customers go by bike out there. Therefore IKEA has now launched a free bicycle hire scheme that consists of bicycles and trailers.

Implementation

At present one store in Denmark applies 5 of these special bicycles so that customers have the opportunity to bring their new purchase home on bike. They can lend these bicycles and trailers directly at the store and whenever a purchase is too big for a normal bike people can take one of the IKEA bicycles. The project is now under observation and if it succeeds it will be adopted in other European countries as well as in China. This opens a new market to bicycle lovers who might have felt irritated by the fact that some purchase couldn’t be brought home on the bike and a transporter had to be requested.

The high quality bicycles and trailers are made by the Danish company Velorbis

Freetrailer Denmark is the service provider for the rental system www.freetrailer.dk

Conclusions

As many people like to drive by bike, IKEA additionally found a strategy to satisfy them. Due to the location of their stores and most likely of the heavy purchase, other vehicles seemed more attractive as the case may be that there was not quite an opportunity. Through its new campaign IKEA has now contributed an elaborated opportunity and supports the environmental pollution.

Author

Barbara Possert

 

http://www.eltis.org/study_sheet.phtml?study_id=1940&mainID=458