Thousands of Coronavirus-Weary Chileans Mob South America’s First-Ever Ikea on Opening

Thousands of Chileans in the capital of Santiago flocked to the opening of Ikea’s first South American store on Wednesday, waiting in a lengthy queue in the early morning hours to be able to partake in a shopping spree of the Swedish company’s products.

The 164,470 square feet store, located in an upscale neighborhood of the Chilean capital, finally opened its doors on August 10 after it was first announced in May 2018. The expansion of the Ikea franchise in South America is a joint venture between Ikea and the Chilean multinational department store chain Falabella. A second 269,097 square feet store is planned to open in the Cerrillos comune in late 2022.

“We are very excited to bring the IKEA Concept to South America, starting in Chile. After a long time of preparations, we are now finally able to offer the IKEA Range of well-designed, high-quality home furnishing, produced with care for people and the environment to the many people in the country,” said Jon Abrahamsson, CEO of Inter IKEA Group in a company press release on Wednesday. Ikea has plans to open their third South American store in Bogota, Colombia by 2023.

 

It is not uncommon for South American customers, regardless of their country of residence, to swarm a brand new foreign franchise that has begun to operate in their respective countries, and Chile has had similar experiences in the past with foreign franchises such as Starbucks. It is also seen as a way to partake in the offerings of those respective franchises without having to engage in tourism abroad.

Argentine news website Infobae collected the thoughts of some of the most die-hard Chilean fans of Ikea that visited the store on its opening on Wednesday.

Eduardo, a Chilean man, said he knew “the version of Ikea in other countries” and wanted to know “what the Chilean version is like,” so he did not care about the almost three hours he had to wait to access the store.

“I knew Ikea from when I traveled to Germany and I was fascinated by it, and they said they were going to open here and here I am,” explained a woman named Ainoa.

The fierce Chinese coronavirus lockdowns that Chileans were subjected to since 2020 is another factor to consider that has prompted renewed interest in brick-and-mortar shopping. Some of Chile’s most popular tourist spots, such as Chile’s Easter Island, only begun to reopen their doors to tourists at the start August after being closed since 2020.

The opening counted with the presence of the Swedish ambassador to Chile, Tomas Wiklund, Ikea’s CEO, Jon Abrahamsson, Falabella’s CEO, Gaston Bottazzini, and the Chilean Ministry of Finance, Mario Marcel, who described the store as “an important investment and is a sign of trust in our [Chile’s] economy.”

“This is a project that has been maturing for several years, the pandemic came in between, but it ultimately materialized with a very significant investment, close to US$100 million,” Marcel added.

Chile’s Diario Financiero newspaper reported on Wednesday that the store was prepared to receive more than 7,000 customers on its opening day.

Ikea’s arrival in Chile comes at a time where inflation in the South American nation has risen for the 17th consecutive month in a row, reaching 13 percent in July, and marking a new 28-year high in the nation’s inflation rate, while overall prices have risen 13.1 percent from 2021.

Chile’s Central Bank had to intervene in July with a $25 billion injection to help the nation’s currency, the Chilean Peso, after it fell to record lows of 1,045.80 Pesos per United States Dollar in the exchange market.

Chile has also gone through three years of intense and violent leftist protest and riots against both former center-right president Sebastián Piñera and current far-left President Gabriel Boric, who previously supported and participated in said protests before becoming the president of the country. 

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.