All roads lead to Ikea

Memphis store lures customers by car from Miss., Ark., Tenn.

From where are the out-of-town customers of the new Ikea Memphis coming?

Tupelo, Mississippi, and Dyersburg, Tennessee, lead the list, at least among customers who traveled to the store in Cordova but arranged to have their purchases delivered, according to statistics provided by the home furnishings retailer.

The numbers are small because the store has been open only nine weeks, and the vast majority of customers haul their boxes of furniture and accessories back home in their own cars or trucks.

But as of late last week, the cities of origin for customers are (with the number of deliveries to that city): Tupelo (4); Dyersburg (4); Ballardsville, Mississippi (2); and Belden, Mississippi; Osborne Creek, Mississippi; Bono, Arkansas; Paragould, Arkansas; and Reyno, Arkansas.

“Many customers in this part of the U.S. seem to have access to vehicles that are large enough to take away their purchase,” Carol Smith, Ikea Memphis’s loyalty leader, said in an email.

“I can tell you that I’ve personally spoken to customers who have come as far as Nashville (many customers, since we’ve opened!), Fayetteville, Jackson, and one from St. Louis,” she said.

Even though St. Louis also has a new Ikea of its own, Smith wrote, “the customer was just curious as to what our store was like.”

Ikea spent $64 million building the 271,000-square-foot store on 35 acres at what is now 7900 Ikea Way.

Ikea is the first retailer to receive a tax incentive — payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) — from the Economic Development Growth Engine of Memphis & Shelby County. The property tax break totals about $10 million, but the EDGE board staff calculates the store will still generate a $15 million net increase in tax revenue for Memphis and Shelby County.