Stampede like situation at Ikea's opening day in Hyderabad

Screengrab: twitter/@IKEASverige

New Delhi: Swedish home furnishings behemoth Ikea's debut in Hyderabad saw scores of shoppers thronging to the store and so overwhelming was the response that it was almost a stampede-like situation.

About 40,000 people visited IKEA`s first India store on the opening day, a company spokesperson told IANS.

People standing in serpentine queues were jostling to get their hands on the store's products inside the store, while the traffic outside the store came to a standstill. With huge crowd thronging the store in the evening, the IKEA staff found it a bit challenging to regulate the entry. There were also few tense moments when some people broke queue to force their entry.

#WATCH Stampede like situation at public opening of Swedish home furnishing brand #IKEA in Hyderabad, yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Ta5izho02E — ANI (@ANI) August 10, 2018

Netizens complained that the poor traffic management was nothing sort of menace for commuters. However, Cyberabad Traffic shifted the blame on Ikea's insufficient and improper parking.

TRAFFIC ADVISORY regarding IKEA stores pic.twitter.com/PqEBtHdE0c — CYBERABAD TRAFFIC (@CYBTRAFFIC) August 9, 2018

Several visitors were seen in the 1,000-seater restaurant, which is the biggest for IKEA in its global network.

The 400,000 sq.ft store offers 7,500 products including 1,000 products priced below Rs 200.

The first India store of IKEA was opened with an investment of Rs.1,000 crore, five years after the world`s largest single brand retailer received government approval in 2013 to invest Rs 10,500 crore to open 25 stores in India by 2025.

The company now revised the number of stores to 40 across all formats.

With Agency Inputs