Retail Franchise Australia - IKEA has confirmed it is building its biggest Australian store yet in Springvale, southeast of Melbourne, as part of what will be Australias largest homemaker centre. The 82,000sqm site on the corner of Princes Highway and Westall Road in Springvale will be jointly owned by IKEA and Harvey Norman with 70,000sqm of retail space, including a new 32,000sqm IKEA store, and space for up to 15 other retailers. The size of the store was an important factor in enabling IKEA to keep its prices low. The IKEA vision is to offer a wide range of home furnishings of good design and function at prices so low that the majority of people can afford to buy them. IKEA achieves this through clever product design, cost effective manufacturing, buying in bulk and transporting in flat packs and also by asking the customer to do some of the work themselves, they select their own furniture, collect it from a massive selfserve warehouse, take it home with them and then assemble it themselves.

Since closing its small stores in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, IKEA Australia is now ranked as the fastest growing IKEA country in the world in terms of sales for this year; and the Sydney store on Homebush Bay Drive is currently the fastest growing individual IKEA store out of 260 around the world. There is also one IKEA Retail Franchise store in both Adelaide and Perth. The new IKEA store in Melbourne will create over 300 new jobs for the Dandenong area.