BLG to operate new distribution center for IKEA

At the new distribution center in Elsdorf, Lower Saxony, BLG will take over incoming goods as well as the storage and picking of all products ordered online. With its direct highway connection and central location between Hamburg and Bremen, Elsdorf offers ideal conditions for the fast delivery of goods in the region in the eyes of the logistics service provider. In future, goods for customers from the Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck, Bremerhaven, Bremen and Oldenburg areas will be picked and dispatched from the warehouse, which has more than 36,000 storage spaces. The new location is around 35,000 square meters in size; BLG will ensure smooth processing for its customers with around 110 employees. BLG has been working for its customer IKEA since 1997 and, with the distribution center in Erfurt, operates one of the largest warehouse locations in the customer's global network.

IKEA Group

The IKEA Group operates a total of 355 stores in 29 countries. In addition, there are more than 40 stores managed by franchisees outside the IKEA Group. In the 2017 financial year, a total of 817 million people visited the IKEA Group's stores and 2.1 billion people visited the website www.ikea.com.

Central location with ideal highway access

The foundation stone was laid in mid-January in the presence of the Mayor of Elsdorf, Andreas Bellmann, Johannes Ferber, Head of Expansion IKEA Germany and Claudia Dahlke, Distribution Operations Manager IKEA Distribution Services. "We are delighted that we can further shorten the distance to our customers with our new distribution center. Our location is centrally located in northern Germany and close to the port cities of Hamburg and Bremen. We also have a direct connection to the freeway and, with around 86,000 square meters, a sufficiently large area to position ourselves in Elsdorf for the long term and for the future," says Claudia Dahlke, explaining the reasons for the location decision. IKEA is the developer and owner of the distribution center, with an investment of just under 60 million euros.

Planning of further IKEA distribution centers

This is what IKEA's distribution center in Elsdorf is supposed to look like. Simulation: IKEA Germany

But that's not all: "More and more customers are ordering their IKEA products online and having them delivered to their homes. For this reason, we see the need for more comparable distribution centers throughout Germany. Shorter transportation routes are not only more efficient and environmentally friendly, but also enable us to deliver the ordered goods much faster than before," says Johannes Ferber. "Specifically, we are already looking for land for additional distribution centers in the Munich area, the Stuttgart area and the Rhine-Main region." In the future, a further densification with IKEA's own distribution centers in all German metropolitan regions is also planned.

As with many other furniture retailers, IKEA's e-commerce business is clearly picking up speed. According to figures recently compiled by the research and consulting institute EHI Retail Institute e. V., IKEA's online sales amounted to two million euros in 2001. In 2010, it was already 45 million euros and in the 2016/2017 reporting period, it was a whopping 304 million euros - and all of this in Germany alone.

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