A store that is «as close as possible» to all the Algarve. This is one of the great designs of Emmanuel Charpentier, director of the IKEA store in Loulé since September last year. New projects are in the pipeline, such as the creation of planning studios or collection points in various locations.
Five years after the opening, on March 30, 2017, the Sul Informação spoke with Emmanuel Charpentier for an assessment of the path that the store has taken, but also to talk about the bets for the future.
For the director, these five years at IKEA, in Loulé, show how the Algarve “needed and wanted” a store from this Swedish multinational.
«In the last two years, due to the pandemic, we had a break here, which was expected. Still, the balance is fantastic,” he said.
Director since September, succeeding Abdelhak Ayadi in the position, Frenchman Emmanuel Charpentier has worked at IKEA for 30 years, having worked in countries such as Spain and France.
His leadership style, he guarantees, will be «very inclusive, uniting the whole team» and always with an eye on the future.
In addition to investing in affordable prices and sustainability, among the main projects that Emmanuel wants to implement, during the five years he will lead IKEA in Loulé, is the creation of «planning studios», something that already exists in other stores in Portugal. , such as Coimbra and Cascais.
In these spaces, customers will be able to have a personalized meeting and plan, in detail, what they want for their homes, somewhat similar to what already exists in Loulé, but only in the area of the kitchens.
Another of the projects is to have points for people to be able to collect their orders, in some places in the Algarve, which “will make it cheaper to access IKEA products”, explained the new director.
Added to this is the focus on an area that Emmanuel Charpentier sees with «potential» in the Algarve. It is about Home staging, whose objective is to make a property more attractive before the lease or sale.
«It is a business that is challenging because it is new, but I think it should be a bet in the coming years», defended the director of the IKEA store in Loulé.
Regarding the stock shortages, which, in recent months, still due to the pandemic, have affected stores, Emmanuel Charpentier guarantees that the scenario “is already improving”.
"Fortunately, we are better, but we still don't know when we will return to the levels of the past, which also depends on macroeconomic factors", he explained.
Furthermore, the 5th anniversary of IKEA Loulé will be marked with different commercial activities throughout the store from the 4th to the 15th of April, including the 40% discount on different items for IKEA Family members, free children's menus or all you can eat of meatballs.
With 250 employees (80% of whom are on contract), IKEA has plans to recruit another 30 people and on 14 April there will be a special day dedicated to recruitment.
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