The tertiary sector
Businesses in the tertiary sector provide a service, such as banking, transportation or retailing. They do not extract the raw materials or make products themselves. 11% of businesses within the UK are retailers.
In the tertiary sector, IKEA's retail stores add value to manufactured goods by providing a form of shopping different to the usual high-street experience. IKEA has more than 260 stores in over 36 countries. These meet the needs of consumers in a number of different ways:
Retailing turnover in the UK was more than £250 billion in 2006.
Each IKEA store is large and holds more than 9,500 products giving lots of choice.
Within each store, there are a number of realistic room settings that enable customers to see what the products would look like in their own homes.
The IKEA store is built on a concept of 'you do half, we do half; together we save money'. This refers to, for example, the customer assembling furniture at home.
Customers handpick products themselves using trolleys.
IKEA provides catalogues and home delivery to save customers” time.
IKEA stores have restaurants that provide Swedish dishes alongside local food choices.
To make its activities more sustainable, IKEA has set up many local UK initiatives:
In 2006 IKEA UK recycled more than 70% of its waste products. Its goal is to recycle 90% of materials.
To reduce environmental impact, in 2006 IKEA UK started to charge for carrier bags. This reduced the use of carrier bags by 95%. In June 2007 IKEA UK removed carrier bags from its stores completely.
In December 2006 IKEA UK gave a brand-new folding bike to each of its 9,000 employees. It also gave subsidised travel tickets to encourage them to travel to and from work on public transport.
IKEA UK has provided low-energy light bulbs to its entire UK workforce and switched its fleet of company cars to low-emission hybrid models