Ikea
The logo of IKEA is seen behind a traffic sign at a store in Voesendorf, Austria. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader

Ikea is now Australia’s leading furniture and electrical retailer with a customer satisfaction rating of 91.6% in June up an impressive 7.4% on a year ago.

Ikea’s resurgence over the past year has seen the iconic Swedish-owned business overtake 2017 Annual Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Award winner for the category JB Hi-Fi now in second on 90.6%, Harvey Norman in third on 89.4% and The Good Guys in fourth on 89.2%.

All four leading furniture and electrical retailers increased their customer satisfaction over the last 12 months however Ikea’s improvement has outstripped its rivals since mid-2017.

Roy Morgan Furniture/Electrical Store Customer Satisfaction June 2018 – Top 5

Ikea
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, July 2018 – June 2017, n=14,544 and July 2017 – June 2018. n=14,836. Base: Australians 14+. Roy Morgan Single Source Australia

JB Hi-Fi attracts more men whilst Ikea is favoured by women

Analysis of the overall furniture and electrical store market shows over 6 . 1 million Australians shop at a furniture or electrical store in an average four weeks with the market comprising over 3.3 million men compared to around 2.8 million women.

A closer look shows the gender difference is driven primarily by patronage of JB Hi-Fi. JB Hi-Fi is the largest retailer in the category and o ver 60% of JB Hi-Fi’s customers are men compared to fewer than 40% that are women .

This situation is reversed for monthly winner Ikea which has nearly 60% female customers compared to just over 40% who are male.

There are also clear customer differences depending on age. Ikea and Fantastic Furniture, which are primarily furniture stores, have their strongest markets amongst those aged 25-34 and 35-49 years old.

Leading electrical retailer JB Hi-Fi also performs strongly in these age groups and is the leading store for those aged under 25 years old. In contrast customers for Harvey Norman and Betta Home Living/ Betta Electrical are far more likely to be aged 65+ years old than for other stores.

Although the customer base of most stores is skewed towards the larger population centres of the Capital Cities, Betta Home Living/ Betta Electrical stands out with over four-fifths of its customers being based in Australia’s country areas.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says Ikea has put in a string of strong performances in 2018 and is in a good position to claim the Annual Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Award for furniture and electrical stores for the first time:

“Ikea’s customer satisfaction has improved by an impressive 7.4% over the past year to 91.6% to overtake both JB Hi-Fi now on 90.6% and Harvey Norman on 89.4% and win the latest monthly Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Award for furniture and electrical retailers in June.

“Ikea’s victories in the first half of 2018 are the Swedish retailers’ first monthly victories since January 2015 and put Ikea in a good position to end the dominance of JB Hi-Fi and subsidiary The Good Guys in the category.

“JB Hi-Fi or The Good Guys have won six out of seven Roy Morgan Annual Customer Satisfaction Awards in the furniture and electrical stores category since the inaugural award in 2011 only missing out in 2015 when the category was won by Betta Home Living/ Betta Electrical.

“Analysis of Roy Morgan’s Single Source data comprising over 50,000 in-depth face-to-face interviews per year shows that while there is significant crossover between the Ikea and JB Hi-Fi customer bases there are also clear differences highlighted by the Roy Morgan Helix Personas psychographic segmentations.

“Both Ikea and JB Hi-Fi hold strong appeal for high income inner urban ‘Metrotechs’ and well-off outer-suburbanites known as ‘Today’s Families’, however the customer bases of the two diverge beyond these two communities.

“Ikea is over-represented amongst high income families in the inner suburbs known as ‘Leading Lifestyles’ while the outer-suburban communities ‘Aussie Achievers’ and ‘Getting By’ are far more likely to be found at a JB Hi-Fi than Ikea.

“To learn more about the consumer markets furniture and electrical retailers are competing over don’t hesitate to contact Roy Morgan for further details.”

Article from press release sent for consideration to publish.