Drag queens and meatballs: First look inside Ikea’s long-awaited Oxford Street flagship

It’s been years in the making, and now Ikea’s Oxford Street flagship store is almost ready to open. 

When shoppers enter the building, which formerly housed the flagship Topshop store, they’re greeted with pockets of low-cost products curated around a selection of Ikea’s chosen London influencers for the store – among which is drag artist Carrot and content creators The Patterson Family.

There’s also an Ikea “merch” section and self-checkout station, where fans can quickly pick up T-shirts, water bottles and even bucket hats emblazoned with the homeware giant’s logo should they not wish to embark on the full furniture browsing experience. 

One floor down houses the vast majority of the retail space, home to the restaurant, showroom, planning areas, as well as a first for the brand: a 25 sq m multipurpose studio space that will be used for a variety of customer events, including live music, food tastings and children’s entertainment. 

The 130-seater Swedish deli is expected to be a huge hit on the street, according to the retailer’s execs, down to the fact that it’s one of, if not the cheapest place, to eat on Oxford Street and in the wider West End.

There have been no price hikes on the menu just because of the location, so shoppers will pay 85p for their hot dog just as they would in any big-box Ikea. Meatballs with the trimmings are £5.50, and its offer of bacon and sausage breakfast rolls are £1.60 each – considerably cheaper than high street hero Greggs’ £2.40. The retailer has also added fish and chips to the menu of this store, for obvious reasons. 

Food collection is also available at the store via the Ikea Food app, so shoppers can order their meatballs while they’re in John Lewis and pick them up en route to the tube. 

The showroom leads shoppers around a variety of Londoners’ living spaces, which the retailer has recreated in-store and has named “culture clusters”, with a focus on maximising small spaces and highlighting its most affordable ranges. There’s also a large area dedicated to home working and gaming desk set-ups, which it says is increasingly important in London and beyond. Shoppers will also find the planning services that they’re accustomed to in bigger stores.

Throughout the store, products are tagged with either a red or yellow label, indicating whether shoppers can take them home that day or order them for delivery.

On the bottom floor is the market hall and the checkouts, which are entirely self-serve with staff on hand, as well as scan-and-go-ready. 

Q&A: Matt Gould, Ikea market manager, London City

Are you nervous about the store opening? 

“Of course, a little bit. There’s always some nerves, but I think more excitement. So much has been put into this store. We’ve opened stores before but the work and togetherness from everybody, not just here in this store but in the totality of London, has been a team effort. When we open on Thursday, it will be a celebration by everybody, not just the store team.”

What’s your favourite part of the store?

“The culture clusters. This is a new concept. Our challenge in the big stores is how to show lots of solutions in a much smaller space. These are designed by people who live in London — real-life solutions. These are people’s homes in London, showcased in a way that’s quite inspiring and has a wow factor when you walk in. I really like it.”

You’ve got around 150 colleagues in the store, are you fully staffed? How was the hiring process?

“We are fully staffed. We had over 3,000 applicants for Oxford Street, which was unbelievable. We’ve never seen that level of applicants before. It says something about people being excited to work on Oxford Street, but I think we’ve also done so much work on the benefits and flexibility of working for Ikea. Of course, we have the living wage, but people expect more now. They want more flexibility, a different lifestyle and different ways of working. We’ve built that into the offer, which created such excitement and interest in the positions.”

Was there anything you changed your mind about while building the store?

“We’ve certainly done some tweaks. One of the biggest ones is how we work with the ground floor — that first floor coming on the entrance — because that was a space that is brand new for Ikea. It’s not really any concept seen anywhere else. We had a lot of discussions on what it should be, how we should work with it and what the priorities are. Oxford Street itself has expectations when it comes to customers and interaction with the brand. The most important thing for us was connecting to London — that was the number-one priority. We also wanted to talk a lot about the range itself, and we wanted some unique merchandise like the T-shirts and hats.”

Is there anything in the store now that you’re not sure will work or might need tweaking?

“Probably just due to success, I would say the food area is going to be fantastic. If you look at the offer today on Oxford Street, the price point is going to be super competitive, probably the most affordable. Customers always ask, ‘Are we going to have meatballs? Are we going to have chips? Are we going to have hot dogs?’ So customers are waiting for it. The space itself is going to be interesting to work with.”

People taking furniture home on the tube has the potential to be quite disruptive. How big is the biggest item people can take home? 

“The maximum size of a take-home article is about 1.2m in length. It’s still quite big, but it all depends on the range. For example, a curtain pole can be 1.2m but not necessarily a bulky item. For furniture, we’ve been super mindful of customers taking items away, but also considerate of the high street and other people walking up and down. A lot of work has gone into ensuring that whatever items customers can take away, it’s not just for that person taking it. We’ve worked with TfL and the local council to make sure we’re not causing problems. We’ve also invested in the right fulfilment solutions, so if you want a Billy bookcase or a wardrobe, we’ve put new solutions in place so you can have it the next day. If you’re within the local area, we also have a local delivery solution where you can get same-day delivery.”

What happens if someone gets to the till and says, ‘I’ve got all this, but I can’t get it home’?

“That will be handled by the local delivery service. When you finish at the checkout, just before you get to the escalators, that’s where we’ll have our delivery options. You can go there and say ‘I bought too much’, or ‘I wasn’t expecting this’, and we can accommodate that.”

Are you prepared with crowd control on Thursday?

“We are prepped for Thursday and into the weekend as well. Of course, we have the bank holiday, so we’re practical about that. We’re super excited.”

Have you got quite ambitious sales targets for the weekend?

“What’s important for us is that we want to inspire and bring in new customers. That’s really what we want to do here. That’s why we’re in the city. We want to be more accessible and bring more people into the heart of the city. We see the high street as continuing to be the future, where we want people to not just shop, but also interact and socialise. The store has been designed from a business perspective, but also with the live studio and food area to create a space where people can socialise and have fun.”

Tell us more about the studio space

“We wanted to design a space that honours Topshop’s legacy in this unique building. We did a lot of customer focus groups before opening the store to get a flavour of what customers expect and want to see. What stood out the most is that they want new experiences. They want to have fun, interact with the range, and socialise in an activity space. The live studio will give us different elements: hosting new ranges, having new guests, working with the local community, and doing new and exciting things that maybe you don’t expect from Ikea. That’s the exciting thing.”

Can you give us a flavour of what you’ve got planned for that space in the next few months?

“We have a big calendar of what’s coming — some we can share, some we can’t yet. We’ll have live kitchens with meatballs and food interaction. We’ll have unboxing of new ranges and limited edition ranges showcased there. We’re working with local artists to have live music in those spaces as well. We’re working with different charities to encourage local and diverse people to showcase their music. Downstairs, at the minute, we have the Scott Scooter range for children’s interaction and fun with the soft toy campaign.”

What was the hardest part of the store to put together?

“I would say the hardest piece is allowing customers to know how to navigate. The navigation piece has been something we’ve worked a lot on. In Hammersmith, we opened with what we used to call a free flow so you can kind of enter anywhere. Here, the stage flow is a lot clearer for customers. There are shortcuts, of course, but I think navigation has been something we’ve done a lot of work on. We hope it’s now a lot clearer, so you know exactly where to pop in and pop out. You can do that, but you can still have the full experience as well.”