Swedish home furnishings chain IKEA opened its new Pentagon City store Aug. 16, although it is more of a showroom and a project planning store than a traditional IKEA.
The IKEA Arlington Plan store, at 1201 S. Hayes Street in the Pentagon Centre, is the first such location in the D.C. market. It is intended as a showroom to give shoppers ideas for home projects, and to receive one-on-one consultations with designers.
It is most useful for interior design projects that require more help, like kitchen and bathroom redesigns.
It is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. While shoppers can’t get instant gratification by loading up their SUV, the store does arrange for home delivery of purchases.
“The all-new IKEA Arlington Plan and order point will allow customers to meet with professional consultants who can help them optimize their living and working spaces,” said Raquel Ely, Market Manager at IKEA U.S. “With full-service delivery, this is a new, intimate experience that’s uniquely IKEA. It’s where design expertise meets convenience.”
It plans to open other IKEA Plan stores in Fairfax and Gaithersburg. Those stores will be available for product ordering and follow-up customer pickup.
IKEA’s closest traditional stores in the D.C. area are at Potomac Mills in Woodbridge, Virginia, and College Park, Maryland.
IKEA relied on its former home catalog and traditional in-store sales for decades. It only recently- rolled out its e-commerce platform which saw sales grow sharply during the pandemic.
IKEA ended its print catalog distribution in 2021 after 70 years. At the catalog’s peak in 2016, 200 million copies were distributed in 69 versions and 32 languages.
