article_detail

Ikea is rolling out its new home services platform in the Region of Murcia, linking local households with certified tradespeople through a dedicated mobile app.

 

The service, Ikea Home, is already operating in Madrid and Barcelona and is now being extended to Murcia as part of a wider expansion into key markets in Spain. The Murcia store has been added to the list of “pioneering areas” for this project, along with Alicante, Valencia, Málaga and Almería - even as Ikea’s planning store in Cartagena’s Espacio Mediterráneo shopping centre closes its doors.

 

For now, the company is in the first phase, recruiting service providers across the region, but the app is expected to be fully up and running with all functions by May. Once live, it will act as a marketplace where customers can quickly find verified professionals for all sorts of jobs around the home. The platform offers around 60 different services, grouped into categories such as air conditioning, painting, flooring installation, electrical work, lighting, plumbing, aluminium and PVC carpentry, tiling and other trades, plus seasonal tasks like pool maintenance and mosquito screen installation.

 

Ikea says the idea is to respond to the growing difficulty many people have in finding reliable trades. The company describes Spain as a “global testing ground” for new concepts and notes that this app first launched as a pilot in Madrid before being extended to Barcelona in September. “It covers a key segment, where our mission to improve people's daily lives takes on special meaning. Murcia is a region with a dynamic real estate market that demands solutions like Ikea Home,” explains Magdalena Anaut, who leads the project in Spain. “We want the people of Murcia to have quick and easy access to services to improve their homes.”

 

The app, available for iOS and Android, includes new features such as payment by bank transfer, financing options and a complete home renovation service. Behind the scenes, Ikea is also using artificial intelligence to refine how it matches customers and suppliers. Questionnaires that generate quotes are tested with an AI assistant to better translate a customer’s needs into clear project descriptions.

 

This, the company says, helps “ensure a better connection between the consumer's needs and the supplier best suited to meet them” and supports tradespeople by automatically summarising project details in a way clients can easily understand.

 

After 16 months of operation in Madrid and Barcelona, Ikea Home has recorded 428,000 downloads and built up a growing network of registered providers. Customer satisfaction scores are high, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for completed services and 4.3 out of 5 for the app itself. Ikea calls these results “the best endorsement” to keep growing the platform and stresses that it is a “dynamic project that continuously improves its features and processes” based on feedback from both customers and professionals.

 

Image: wikicommons