SWEDISH furniture giant Ikea opened its brand-new Valencia store this morning (Tuesday) at 10.00hrs, handing out 10,500 euros' worth of vouchers to the first customers to set foot in the door – many of whom have been camping outside the building since Friday night.
Everyone visiting the store today is encouraged to dress in blue and yellow, the colours of Ikea and the Swedish flag, and free trolleys full of goods given out hourly to customers whose names are drawn out of a hat.
The first customer through the door was given a 500-euro voucher, and the next 100 visitors got a voucher for 100 euros, all to spend in store.
Before the grand opening, a breakfast was held at 08.00hrs with a mixture of typically-Valencian and Swedish food for the Scandinavian country's ambassador in Spain, Cecilia Julin; the store manager Carolina García; regional government president Alberto Fabra and mayor of Alfafar – the town where the shop is located – Juan Ramón Adsuara.
A total of 400 new employees have been taken on – out of the 100,000 applicants who crashed the store's server in days - of whom 224 are women, and who comprise eight nationalities – Spanish, Portuguese, Moroccan, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Italian, Swedish and Ukrainian.
The average age of the new staff is 29, although 33 of them are aged over 45.
Additionally, the multinational has 40 extra employees waiting in the wings for when the store opens on Sundays, which it says it fully intends to do despite opposition.
Ikea was originally told it could open on Sundays, given that this is the second-most profitable day of the week for its Madrid store and doing so would increase turnover by nearly 10 per cent.
But as soon as the paperwork was signed and the store was in the process of being built, Alfafar town council announced it would not agree to Sunday opening so as not to 'affect business' for other shops in the town, which only open weekdays and on Saturday mornings.
Bars and restaurants in and around Alfafar are expected to see a rise in profits of six per cent, and shops will increase sales by 8.5 per cent, given that once Ikea customers are in the area, they are likely to explore further as well as stopping for a coffee or lunch.
The rise in visits to Alfafar and surrounding areas caused by Ikea's opening is predicted to generate 163.7 million euros in profits for local businesses as well as the Swedish store, potentially increasing employment in the district.
Transport, cleaning, security, waste management and crèche staff employed elsewhere but working with Ikea are likely to number around 200 and profits overall for these companies are predicted to rise by around 5.3 million euros a year.
Based upon these figures, the L'Horta Sud district will see its jobless numbers fall by 3.3 per cent and Alfafar town by 3.7 per cent.
Ikea estimates that it will see 2.4 million customers pass through its doors annually.
