In customer satisfaction stakes.

For the first time Swedish retailer Ikea is Australia’s leading furniture and electrical retailer with a customer satisfaction rating of 91.6%, up 7.4% on a year ago.

Ikea’s resurgence has seen the business overtake Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction 2017 award winner JB Hi-Fi, which now sits in second place with a 90.6% rating, followed by Harvey Norman on 89.4% and The Good Guys with a rating of 89.2%.

All four retailers increased their customer satisfaction levels over the last 12 months however Ikea’s improvement has outstripped its rivals since mid-2017.

Further analysis of the overall furniture and electrical store market shows over 6.1 million Australians shop at a furniture or electrical store in an average four weeks with the market comprising over 3.3 million men compared to around 2.8 million women.

The gender difference is driven primarily by patronage of JB Hi-Fi, the largest retailer in the category, with over 60% of JB Hi-Fi’s customers men compared to fewer than 40% women.

This situation is reversed for Ikea which has nearly 60% female customers compared to just over 40% male customers.

There are also clear customer differences depending on age too. Ikea and Fantastic Furniture, which are primarily furniture stores, have a stronger market amongst those aged 25-34 and 35-49 years old.

JB Hi-Fi also performs strongly in these age groups and is the leading store for those aged under 25 years. In contrast, Harvey Norman and Betta Home Living/ Betta Electrical customers are more likely to be aged 65+ years.

Although the customer base of most stores is skewed towards the larger population centres in capital cities, Betta Home Living/ Betta Electrical stands out with over four-fifths of its customers based in country areas.

According to Roy Morgan CEO, Michele Levine, Ikea’s victories in the first half of 2018 are its first monthly victories since January 2015 and put Ikea in a good position to end the dominance of JB Hi-Fi and subsidiary The Good Guys in the category.

“JB Hi-Fi or The Good Guys have won six out of seven Roy Morgan Annual Customer Satisfaction Awards in the furniture and electrical stores category since the inaugural award in 2011 only missing out in 2015 when the category was won by Betta Home Living/ Betta Electrical.”