Ikea is betting you'll come to its coworking space in a mall, then shop at one of its stores

• Ikea's parent company is buying malls and adding its own coworking spaces, food halls, and other venues.
• The Swedish retailer is trying to diversify beyond its warehouse-like stores, according to The Wall Street Journal.
• In the US, foot traffic at many malls has been declining for years.

Ikea's parent company is buying up malls and adding coworking spaces, food halls, and other attractions.

Malls from California to the UK already use Ikea's model, which usually consists of an Ikea store plus other tenants, the company told The Wall Street Journal. Ingka Group, which runs most Ikea stores, is leading the charge.

In San Francisco, for instance, Ikea opened a mall last year featuring Hej! Workshop, its own coworking space fully furnished with Ikea furniture. Ikea is also adding Saluhall, a food hall that serves mostly plant-based and locally sourced food, later this year, according to the Journal. At other malls, Ingka is adding play areas for children.

The Swedish retailer is trying to do more than operate its furniture- and meatball-filled stores.

"People are looking for places that offer much more, not only shopping," Cindy Andersen, the managing director of Ingka Centers, told the Journal.

The malls don't only contain Ikea-owned enterprises. One mall that Ingka recently acquired in the English city of Brighton included an Apple store and a Zara store. It added an Ikea store in the mall where a now-closed department store used to stand.

The Ikea stores in these malls are often smaller than one of the brand's typical warehouses, which tend to be located in their own buildings on the outskirts of cities. Business Insider visited one of the Ikea-owned malls in London, which included an Ikea about one-quarter the size of a typical store. The location still contained rugs, cooking pots, and other commonly purchased home goods.

The strategy is meant to revive declining malls that have faced fewer visits from shoppers for years, both because of fewer tenants and the lingering effects of the pandemic. Ingka's Anderson said that foot traffic at the malls that Ikea owns is "coming back strongly" so far.

The mall bet isn't Ikea's only attempt to diversify its operations. In the US, Ikea has also opened some showroom-style stores built around complete setups for bedrooms, kitchens, and other rooms.

Shoppers can order furniture and other items featured in the store and talk to an employee, but the stores contain very little inventory that customers can buy and take home the same day.