Given Kyiv’s growing traffic jams, IKEA will open here the kind of ‘city store’ that the Swedish company is opening in London, New York, Paris, and Shanghai,

Given Kyiv’s growing traffic jams, IKEA will open here the kind of ‘city store’ that the Swedish company is opening in London, New York, Paris, and Shanghai, Stefan Vanoverbeke, the regional director, tells Interfax-Ukraine. Opening next summer in the expanded Ocean Mall, next to Lybidska metro station, Ukraine’s first IKEA will not offer ‘cash & carry.’ Instead, shoppers will visit a series of showrooms, make their choices and arrange home delivery. Eventually, online sales are to dominate. About 120 people will work in the store and in logistics. After studying the Kyiv market for one year, IKEA expects to open more ‘city stores’ across Ukraine. Vanoverbeke says: “The idea of ​​building one big shopping center in one part of the city does not work anymore. For example, residents of the Left Bank of Kiev, to get to the store on the Right Bank, have to spend 1-2 hours.”