2 Products

IKEA furniture is well-known for its modern (often unusual) design, and because much of it is self-assembly furniture (also known as "flatpack"), designed to be assembled by the consumer rather than being sold pre-assembled. IKEA claims this permits them to reduce costs and use of packaging by not shipping air — the volume of a bookcase, for example, is considerably less if it is shipped disassembled rather than assembled.

IKEA has also pioneered the use of more sustainable approaches to mass consumer culture. Its founder calls it "democratic design," meaning that the company applies an integrated approach to manufacturing and design. Responding to the explosion of human population — and material expectations — in the 20th century, the company has mastered economies of scale, capturing material streams and creating manufacturing processes that hold costs and resource use down. The result is flexible, adaptable home furnishings, scaleable both to larger homes and the increasing, yet generally ignored, number of smaller dwellings. IKEA prides itself on creating a new approach to consumption — one not driven by conventional U.S. or European approaches to home furnishings, and focused on a frugal, yet conscious, aesthetic.

3 Store Format

Newer IKEA stores are usually very large blue boxes with few windows. They are often designed around a mandatory "one-way" layout which forces consumers to traverse nearly all parts of the store before reaching the cashier or check-out stands. The sequence involves going through furniture showrooms and housewares first, then the warehouse where one collects flatpacks for products seen in the showrooms, and then the cashier.

This design has the advantage of making consumers encounter IKEA products which they might not have thought to look for, but has the disadvantage of inconveniencing consumers who already know what they want to buy and just want to return to the warehouse area.

Many stores include restaurants serving typically Swedish food. Outside of Sweden these restaurants are sometimes complemented by mini-shops selling swedish-made, swedish-style groceries.

4 Transportation Issues

Like all big box stores, IKEA stores draw consumers from a very large area. Because they are perceived as fascinating and exotic in the U.S., they often draw consumers from as far away as 50 miles. In turn, the handful of American cities which accepted IKEA stores were delighted by the subsequent surge in sales tax revenue, and dismayed at the accompanying surge in traffic congestion.

For example, when an IKEA opened in 1999 in Emeryville, California, the traffic was so severe that most local traffic lights were rendered useless. Emeryville police were forced to manually direct traffic daily for three months (for which they were reimbursed). When an IKEA opened in Tempe, Arizona in 2004, the traffic jams on Interstate 10 were so severe that the Arizona Department of Public Safety had to close the nearest off-ramp to the store just to spread out the traffic among other nearby off-ramps.

IKEA's most popular store Brent Cross, London often has frequent traffic jams on the weekends.

5 Corporate structure

IKEA operates on a franchise basis. Despite IKEA's Swedish roots, the owner (franchisor) of the IKEA concept is a Dutch company, Inter IKEA Systems BV. The operator (franchisee) of the majority of the stores worldwide is a separate entity, the IKEA Group, a private group of companies owned by a Dutch charitable foundation.

6 See also

• Ikano
• List of Swedish companies

7 External link

• IKEA - Official site

Companies of Sweden

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