Danish furniture retailer JYSK has revealed plans to expand its homeware category in more countries, including Ireland.

The JYSK stores in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe have previously had a larger Homeware range, which includes vases, kitchen accessories and artificial plants than the Scandinavian countries, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, and UK. This has now changed when the transition to indoor was carried out.

Sales of Homeware have been increasing for a number of years, and therefore the decision was taken that Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland and Belgium should increase the amount of Homeware products in stores.

“We have witnessed a fantastic development in Homeware over the past six years and continuously added new articles, most recently kitchen accessories. We want to meet this demand, which is why we sat down about a year ago to look at how we could achieve this,” says Katrine Kruuse, Purchasing Director for Homeware, Home Textiles and Window Dressing.

In order to make room for more Homeware, space had to be found for a 9.5-metre floor span in 549 stores. “We had to look into the other categories to make a cost-benefit analysis, and the result was that we have scaled down the amount of products in the Window Dressing and Home Textiles categories,” says Katrine.

The actual rearrangement in the stores was executed by Retail in collaboration with Retail Development. Approximately 80% of the stores could rearrange themselves, but in Belgium and Ireland all stores had to be restructured, which on average took 1.5-2 days with E-Teams and brand-new store layouts.

“It has without a doubt been the biggest project of my time at JYSK. All Store Concept Managers have had to go through every single store layout, make rearrangements and instruct Retail and stores. It has taken many hours, but all the good preparation has resulted in a smooth execution,” says Henrik Fisker, Retail Concept Manager.

“The Homeware category greatly helps to ensure additional sales. Here, we can really show that we are on board with the latest trend and we can inspire our customers how to renew their homes easily for only a small amount of money,” says Katrine.

As for the UK and the Netherlands, these countries continue to have a smaller Homeware range, as it was deemed not to be the “optimal solution at this time”.

In other news, the business has announced the launch of its new corporate website, JYSK.com, featuring a more modern and user-friendly design. The website provides colleagues, customers and stakeholders with easy access to a wealth of JYSK-related information.

Furthermore, JYSK has opened its largest store in Belgium, in a new building that also houses its sister company Sofacompany, part of the Lars Larsen Group, as well as its head office. Located in Benelux, the retailer hopes that both chains complement each other.