Dive Brief:
- Under a five-year deal, CEVA Logistics will provide warehouse management and fulfillment services to IKEA's new customer distribution center on Staten Island in New York City.
- The new facility focuses on home delivery of items to customers who order online or purchase larger items in-store or the Planning Studio, accord to a CEVA press release. The facility is already in operation seven days a week. CEVA has operated logistics facilities for IKEA in the United Kingdom and Australia since 2015.
- The 975,000-square-foot site was built on a vacant 200-acre lot of land on the west shore of Staten Island, as part of IKEA's expansion into the New York City market. Development costs for the facility were around $33.2 million, according to published reports.
Dive Insight:
The distribution center will support purchases from IKEA's Manhattan Planning Studio, the first of its kind in the United States.
It's part of IKEA's strategy to open retail space closer to city centers that are targeted to local markets rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, the New York Business Journal reported. The Manhattan studio will offer a new option to island-dwellers currently faced with traveling to New Jersey or Brooklyn to see IKEA merchandise in person. With this new shopping option, the challenge then becomes urban fulfillment.
"The new facility will help meet the delivery needs of our New York-area customers whether they are shopping in our stores, the IKEA Planning Studio or online," Tanja Dysli, customer fulfillment manager for IKEA Retail U.S., said in a statement.
The new distribution center reflects the operations knowledge CEVA and IKEA have gained over the years.
"We've used our logistics expertise to design and deliver solid solutions which specifically meet your needs and enable this huge facility to run effectively," Brett Bissell, CEVA's chief operating officer of contract logistics, said in a statement. "We then combine the skills and experience of our operations managers and supply chain designers to make the building work for you on a day-to-day basis."
