STOCKHOLM: Ikea will pay a total of 110 million euros ($128 million) in bonuses to employees worldwide as reward for their work during the pandemic, Ingka Group, the company that operates most Ikea’s stores, said Friday.

The group said the coronavirus crisis forced it to move much of its brick-and-mortar business online, even as sales remained robust with more people in lockdown buying furniture and housewares.

“The pandemic put us into a situation that I think none of us really were prepared for,” Ulrika Biesert, a manager at IKEA Retail, told AFP.

“We went from mostly being an offline business to an online business within two weeks.”