It seemed that IKEA wasn’t hit too badly by the Covid-19 effect, so much so that the retailer is in talks to return furloughed money to governments.
We’re guessing consumers’ interest in home improvement and decorations really rose to popularity during quarantine and beyond.
The company had decided to start a dialogue with Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain and the US.
IKEA estimated that business could drop by 70-80% at the beginning of the pandemic. Now, most of its stores across the globe has re-opened and all are experiencing a high surge of demand.
“It’s just the right thing to go back and say, ‘hey guys thanks very much, you helped us through this difficult period and so now can we see about paying this back or forward’,” said Tolga Oncu, retail operations manager to the Financial Times about the company’s decision to return furloughed money.
Ikea is currently in early discussions with different national authorities. Because of differences in how the furlough or short-time working schemes are set up, the company does not yet know how it will pay the governments back.
Some other companies have returned furlough money in individual countries, but few large multinational companies have committed to returning all support.
Either way, it’s a positive sign for the retail industry that bounce back will take time, but clearly consumers are pent up to shop.
Source: Financial Times
