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. Retailing turnover in the UK was more than £250 billion in 2006.
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:
• 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.
