IKEA's Oxford Street store is kick-starting a huge change for the Swedish brand in the UK

IKEA has finally opened on London's iconic Oxford Street today, and after getting a sneak peek of the new store last night, I can say it is more than another store, but the start of a big change in how people like me shop at the Swedish homeware store.

Living in London without a car has meant that shopping at IKEA was largely off limits. My options of footing a delivery fee or trekking out to Wembley or Croydon on public transport put me off the pilgrimage to snap up a £4 spice rack for a budget IKEA hack.

The new store in central London is about to change all that for me, and a lot of other city dwellers, as IKEA says these city centre locations are 'our way forward'.

The new Oxford Street store has taken over the iconic former Topshop unit, and it packs a lot of IKEA into a relatively small footprint.

I had visited the IKEA pop-up store on Oxford Street last year, but I was not prepared for the 5,800 sq m of shopping space, spread out over three floors. There is a London-tailored curated shop on the ground floor, showrooms on the floor below, and the famous Market Hall on the bottom floor.

It matches the same scale and formula of an IKEA store I've visited recently in the centre of Stockholm. You can nip in and grab some meatballs from the Swedish Deli (£4.95 for a plate is going to make this one of London's cheapest lunch spots), and stock up on IKEA bedding, food bags or houseplants on your way out.

While small furniture items will be available to take home from the store immediately, larger items will need to be ordered and delivered (or picked up from another point in the city). However, it seemed clear when I looked around that the focus in this city centre store is the Market Hall, and that's the area I'm most excited about.

The Market Hall is where you'll find all the little ingenious IKEA buys that can easily fit into a blue FRAKTA bag. Think paper lampshades, rugs, food clips, dish racks and frames.

These budget, but useful IKEA items are what I felt I was missing out on as a City dweller. Things that were too cheap to be delivered and too far away to justify travelling for.

The Oxford Street location follows in the footsteps of Hammersmith, which was the first city store in the UK. And it won't be the last, as IKEA has its eyes firmly set on establishing a presence on the Great British high street.

'Adding Oxford Street to the IKEA map is a special moment for us. This store, on one of the busiest and most well-known streets in the world, exemplifies our ambition to innovate our retail presence and bring IKEA to where our customers live, work, and socialise,' says Tolga Öncü, Ingka Retail Manager (COO) at IKEA Retail (Ingka Group).

'Offering our well-designed and affordable products to more people in city centres across the globe remains our way forward.

It does fly in the face of every other trend we've seen for high street stores (don't forget the fate of the Oxford Street store's predecessor). But can IKEA make it work?

'It's a huge vote of confidence in London, in our economy and in our plans to rejuvenate Oxford Street and unlock its true potential,' says The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who is hopeful it will be a hit. 'Oxford Street is one of the most famous shopping destinations in the world, and we want to give it a new lease of life.'

Only time will tell if these city centre IKEA stores prove a hit. For now, I'll finally be enjoying the easy access to a store I've always felt cut off from.