IKEA is a large multinational corporation that sells house wares and furniture. The company operates about 349 stores in 43 countries with sales of about €28.5 billion in 2013 to 500 million customers.
The name is derived from the first letters of four words: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. Elmtaryd is the name of the farm in which Ingvar Kamprad was raise and Agunnaryd is the name of the village in which the farm was located.
In Småland, although the soil is thin and poor the people have a reputation for working hard, living frugally and making the most out of limited resource.
So when Ingvar started his furniture business in the late 1940s, he applied the lessons he learned in Småland to the home furnishings market. In 1945, two years after starting IKEA, Ingvar began advertising his business in local papers and using milk trucks to help deliver his goods.
The trucks could not only deliver to homes, but also the local train station.
The price war going on between mail-order furniture companies ate away at profit margins. With the pressure, Ingvar decided to open a furniture showroom in Almhult in 1953 to give customers the ability to see and experience furniture prior to ordering.
In 1952, the first IKEA catalogue entirely devoted to furniture was issued. By 1953, one of Ingvar’s associates, Gillis Lundgren, had an idea of distributing furniture in kit form, in flat boxes, which permitted a large decrease in shipping costs.
In 1965 IKEA opened a big new store in Stockholm and on the first day the sales went crazy. So the store manger opened up the warehouse and allowed customers to come in and find their own item, and the rest is history.
In 1973, the first store outside Scandinavia was opened outside Zurich, Switzerland. Its success paved the way for a rapid expansion in Germany, which is the largest IKEA market today.
History of IKEA
