How did IKEA manage to become the biggest furniture retailer in the world ? 

IKEA’s success is unrivalled when looking at furniture retailers. What could explain this success ? What led them to be one of the most famous brands in the world ?

IKEA - a company like any other ?

IKEA is the most famous furniture retailer in the world. Created in 1943, by Ingvar Kamprad, in Sweden, IKEA now owns more than 340 stores, located in 28 different countries, and employs almost 183,000 people. 9,500 items are available in their catalogue, 2,500 of them being replaced by new ones each year. IKEA uses 1% of the world’s timber stock. In 2016, the total of their sales reached 34 billion dollars.  

Their evident particularity, for those who’ve been living in a cave for the last 20 years, is that their furniture is ready-to-assemble. Almost everything you can buy in an IKEA (except for food, of course) has to be assembled by the customer. 

IKEA’s image is excellent

When you think IKEA, you first see their yellow and blue logo. But if you think a little further, you could see yourself in one of their comfortable and welcoming living-rooms. And that’s exactly what they want you to see. Because one of the main qualities of IKEA is to look like a friendly company. 

Since their creation, IKEA has always wanted to be seen as a environmentally-friendly company, promoting values such as human rights, ecology, or social progress. In order to match this image, they modelled their company image for the customer to think of it as a ‘cool’ company.  Some examples to have a better understanding of this concept : 

• in 2011, an IKEA in Great Britain organised a pyjama party. The 100 lucky winners could stay a whole night in the IKEA, wherever they wanted. 
• in 2012, in Maryland, USA, a couple celebrated their marriage in an IKEA
• in 2013, they let a famous Swedish YouTuber prank people with hidden cameras in one of their stores
• in 2015, they made a prank of this kind, putting one of their $7 painting in an art museum, in order to see how much people would be ready to bid. 

Obviously all these events were a way for IKEA to promote their brand and their image, but in their specific way. 

This image of a friendly company promoting a social aspect had especially been observable in 1994. In a TV commercial, they staged a homosexual couple debating  which table would fit the best in the living-room. 

The TV commercial obviously had a big impact worldwide, given that IKEA is the first multinational company to truly show homosexuality on TV. In the US for example, the TV commercial wasn’t broadcasted before 10pm, in order not to ‘shock’ children. 

Marketing strategy

Their marketing strategy is also marked by this casualness IKEA wants to put in the mind of their customers. In 2014, following the different Apple ads, they made a hilarious parody of an iPad ad, by replacing the technological device by their catalogue. You can view the commercial for yourself here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRxPJcd0zDw).

IKEA also proved their ability to perfectly follow internet trends when they released a TV commercial with cats in. Having observed their success on the internet, they had a simple idea - why not use them in one of our TV commercials ? So they just released a hundred cats in a store, at night. The cats weren't even trained,  they were just simple kittens chosen randomly, free, in an enormous store. They captured the moment, and the commercial is just touching (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rHLI28FdkY).

IKEA’s specificity 

As explained before, IKEA wants their customers to assemble their furniture themselves. This strategy lets the company hit two targets with one bullet. On the one hand they’re able to keep the furniture prices low, because they don’t have to pay anyone to assemble them (and so they save a lot of money just think of the amount of furniture IKEA sell each day). On the other hand, they developed what will be called later 

‘the IKEA effect’.

This is the name given to the phenomenon which makes people more attached to an item when they partially participated in the creation of it. To be clear, by letting people assemble their furniture, they save money, and make them emotionally more linked to their furniture (obviously creating a desire to buy more furniture and to feel again the same sensation). 

Hidden face

Obviously, a worldwide company like IKEA has dark sides. Apart from its creator’s past, allegedly linked with senior officials of the Nazi Government, IKEA has one goal - to earn money. And to do so, they act like any other company. Their labyrinthine stores are the best examples. They want people to feel lost as they shop, in order to force them to walk past every single piece of furniture, and buy things they don’t really need. 

For a company which has always been keen to put social progress in first plan, encouraging customers to over consume doesn’t seem so right, ethically speaking. 


Paul G.