Belarus' Ikea Copycat To Open 10 Stores In Russia By End Of 2023

Customers queue in IKEA store, in Moscow, Russia, March 3, 2022. Reuters / STAFF

KEY POINTS

The Russian Union of Shopping Centers signed a cooperation agreement with Belarus' Swed House
Swed House can open up to 10 stores with an area of up to 1,000 sqm
Swed House's partnership with Russia comes after IKEA suspended operations following the invasion of Ukraine

A Belarusian home goods company selling products similar to IKEA will open several stores in Russia this year.

The Russian Union of Shopping Centers on Monday announced it signed a cooperation agreement with Belarus' IKEA knockoff, Swed House, to open up to 10 stores in Moscow by the end of the year and up to 50 across Russia in the coming years.

"Our Union has signed an agreement on cooperation with Swed House, which is making products similar to IKEA, in order to open ten stores in Moscow with the area up to 1,000 sqm in 2023," Bulat Shakirov, head of the Union of Shopping Centers, told Russian state media TASS.

"We have received recently more than one hundred requests from shopping centers that want to accommodate them. It is not important whether they are in the Moscow downtown, at the Moscow Ring Road or in bedroom communities. Furniture, home products and textile will enjoy the demand in any case," he added.

Swed House's partnership with the Union of Shopping Centers comes after Ingka Group, the Swedish company that owned and operated IKEA stores in Russia, suspended their operations in the country in March following Moscow's unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The company further scaled back operations in Russia in June, adding that it would sell its factories, close its offices and cut down its 15,000-person workforce in the country. The company noted, however, that it will continue paying its Russian workforce until the end of August 2022.

"We remain hopeful that one day in the future, we will be able to bring back IKEA to the many people in Russia. However, today the preconditions are not in place," the Ingka Group said in a statement to Reuters.

The Ingka Group reopened a one-day-only fire sale in July amid plans to exit the Russian market. IKEA closed its final online sales and liquidated its Russian unit in August, per Reuters, citing corporate records.

On Feb. 16, 2023, a Russian government commission approved the sale of IKEA's factories in Russia to two local buyers. It was not specified who the buyers were. IKEA is hoping to finalize the terms of the sale early this year.