Seoul's first Ikea targets YouTubers and sad millennials

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Seoul's first Ikea targets YouTubers and sad millennials

Published: 14 Apr. 2025, 08:00 Updated: 15 Apr. 2025, 20:15

CHO YONG-JUN
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Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Ikea's Gangdong branch in eastern Seoul is set to open on April 17. [CHO YONG-JUN]

Ikea stores are usually packed full of individuals and families walking around, trying out the sofas and fervently debating home furnishing products. But Seoul's first Ikea, a week before its opening, was filled with untouched furniture, dead silent apart from the occasional staff members in high-visibility jackets making final touches. Featured were all the brand's staples, from curated rooms to a Swedish canteen and an infinite selection of couches, but also a few unique offerings: a wide range of children's plushies, from pandas to golden retrievers, and rooms designed by YouTubers featuring tripods as props.

This is what Seoul residents will get to experience — in their own backyard for the first time — when Ikea Gangdong opens on Thursday.

It's an important time for Ikea, both in Korea and globally. The furniture giant reported its first drop in revenue in 2022 since entering Korea in 2014. While its sales finally rebounded in 2024, it's now working hard to stay competitive in a market that's increasingly moving online. Its Korean arm dropped the prices of more 1,000 items in 2023 and 2024 to compete with major e-commerce players such as Coupang's Rocket furniture service and Ohouse. Outside of the Gangdong location, the firm is investing 30 billion won ($21 million) over the next year in its Gwangmyeong and Goyang branches to establish an automated fulfillment system, which will allow the offline stores to double as logistics hubs for online orders. Ikea spent 16.9 billion won on a similar project at its Giheung, Gyeonggi location last year.

Ikea's Gangdong branch in eastern Seoul is set to open on April 17. [CHO YONG-JUN]

But as it opens its first Korean branch in 11 years, the conglomerate hopes the capital's comparatively young, tech-savvy residents will remember the extra benefits that old-fashioned brick-and-mortar storefronts can offer.

“We know that Korea is the biggest online market for home furnishing in the world,” Ikea Korea CEO Isabel Puig said Friday during a press event at the new branch in Gangdong District, eastern Seoul, ahead of its Thursday opening. “But what we also know is that the old channel approach is the one that counts.”

The benefit of a brick-and-mortar location is "that when you make your decision, no matter whether you buy offline or online, you have already found all the information you need," Puig argued at the event. For example, Puig says, extremely online Korean customers might still visit an Ikea store to check the quality of a sofa.

Ikea Gangdong's manager Magnus Norberg, left and Ikea Korea's CEO and chief sustainability officer Isabel Puig at the Ikea Gangdong media session on April 11 [CHO YONG-JUN]

Ikea Gangdong isn't one of the smaller, pick-up focused stores that are common in urban areas like London's upcoming Oxford Street branch. Despite being located in Korea's largest city, and despite lacking the container-shaped and distinctively blue appearance that traditionally characterizes its parent company, it is a full-blown Ikea, measuring 25,000 square meters (269,000 square feet) across two stories. From the outside, it looks like a big grocery store. It's integrated into Gangdong Ipark The River shopping business complex, with Emart, CGV, Olive Young and many other restaurants and shops connected. The complex will even house Nitori, a Japanese furniture and home furnishing store.

The interior features 44 model "rooms," many of which are catered to the lifestyle of one-person households and young families; households with three or fewer people accounted for 84 percent of Seoul's population last year. Six "dream home" sets were created by prominent influencers in an apparent effort to woo Seoul's younger crowd.

Ikea's Gangdong branch in eastern Seoul is set to open on April 17. [CHO YONG-JUN]

One room, the work of interior design YouTuber Ggyonghouse, featured a distinct purple wall and drawers with purple accents, reminiscent of the pastel-toned room shown in her YouTube channel. Another, designed for fashion YouTubers, featured a vintage and toned-down look with tripods at the back. Rooms were also designed for a young couple and a young family with four kids also had a very different look: The former sported dining tables, a closet in dark wood and two armchairs, the latter white and bright furniture — even yellow door latches.

Don't worry: There's also a 600-seat Swedish restaurant and 50-seat Swedish cafe, featuring menu options exclusive to the store such as pita bread with meatballs.

Ikea Gangdong's Swedish canteen [CHO YONG-JUN]

Puig, quoting the firm's 2023 Life at Home Report, said that only 43 percent of Koreans were satisfied with their life at home, the second lowest proportion in the world. The role of the new Ikea, she said, is "for the 57 percent that are not satisfied to be satisfied." Only time will tell if meatballs, yellow doors and YouTuber-inspired furnishings can change that trend.