Buffalo Ikea
By hotbuffalo on Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Will Ikea ever come to Buffalo? Last year Ikea said “No” (wgrz reported). Why?
Ikea Spokesperson Quote
“We typically open stores in cities that have two million people or more within a certain radius, and Buffalo is not there yet.”
Is this correct? Well, it all depends on how you classify it. The city of Buffalo has right around 215,000 people. That seems a ways away from 2,000,000. Buffalo is approximately 1/2 the population of the entire state of Wyoming.
However, when you talk about being from Buffalo, you might actually be from anywhere in Western NY. Erie county alone has over 950,000 people all within 30 minutes of downtown Buffalo. If you consider the entire are up to Rochester as Western NY, the population soars to over 2,500,000 (just check Wikipedia) If you consider that, Western, NY has just as many people than the entire state of New Mexico or Nevada. Eat your heart out Las Vegas!
The problem is that the Census Bureau deems the Rochester area and the Buffalo area as 2 different areas. They are, but not when it comes to Ikea type shopping. Or non-concentrated population means that we are used to driving more. While that effects our income based on gas prices, it means that we are a lot more like to travel approximately an hour for notable shopping experiences (good people at Ikea, are you listening).
Add to that the several hundred thousand Canadians that love the exchange rate just over the border.
Add to that the HUGE number of college students that need Ikea like items every year that aren’t included in the Census.
Add to that the Buffalo/Niagara region is the 5th fastest growing real estate region in the country.
Does Buffalo need Ikea? Absolutely not.
Can Ikea make a killing in Buffalo? Absolutely yes!
actually the city of buffalo has about 280k people in just the CITY limits and within just 60 miles of buffalo there are 3,521,150 between US and Canada. and that was just as of 2000. yes the US side may have decreased slightly but i bet it all balances out.
Chris said this on October 2nd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Thanks for the comment Chris. That’s very useful information!!!
hotbuffalo said this on October 6th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
they will never come to buffalo, they are being polite with the population statement, they would need a more affluent crowd
allentowndiva said this on November 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
@AllenTownDiva: I too thought Ikea was “affluent” before I did more research. Ikea is best known for the “Flat Packed” furniture. Most of the stuff at Ikea needs to be assembled. While they are still above stores like Wal-mart in terms of affluent customers, they aren’t much more high classed than Target.
hotbuffalo said this on November 4th, 2008 at 3:22 pm