IKEA
IKEA is a multinational conglomerate founded in Sweden that designs and sells, household goods, and various related services.
IKEA was started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, and has been the world's largest furniture retailer since 2008. The brand name is an acronym of the initials of the names of Ingvar Kamprad, the founder, Elmtaryd, the family farm where Kamprad was born, and Agunnaryd, Kamprad's hometown in Småland, southern Sweden.
The company is primarily known for its modernist furniture designs, simple approach to interior design, and immersive shopping concept, based around decorated room settings within big-box stores, where customers can interact with products. In addition, the firm is known for its ready-to-assemble model of furniture sales, continuous product development, and attention to cost control other elements which have allowed IKEA to establish lower prices than its competitors.
IKEA is owned and operated by a series of not-for-profit and for-profit corporations collectively known and managed as Inter IKEA Group and Ingka Group. The IKEA brand itself is owned and managed by Inter IKEA Systems B.V., a company incorporated and headquartered in the Netherlands.
, there are 483 IKEA stores operating in 63 countries, and in fiscal year 2024, €45.1billion worth of IKEA goods were sold. IKEA stores are operated under franchise from Inter IKEA Systems B.V., which handles branding, design, manufacturing, and supply. Ingka Group operates the majority of IKEA stores as a franchisee and pays royalties to Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Some IKEA stores are also operated by independent franchises. The IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and there were over 4.6billion visitors to IKEA's websites in FY2024.
History
In 1943, the 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA as a mail-order sales business and began to resell furniture five years later. The first store was opened in Älmhult, Småland, Sweden, in 1958, under the name Möbel-IKÉA.''IKEA is an acronym that stands for Ingvar Kamprad, the name of the founder, Elmtaryd, the name of the farm on which he grew up, and Agunnaryd'', the name of village close to Elmtaryd.The first stores outside Sweden were opened in Norway and Denmark. The stores spread to other parts of Europe in the 1970s, with the first store outside Scandinavia opening in Switzerland, followed by West Germany, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, Singapore, Spain and the Netherlands. IKEA further expanded in the 1980s, opening stores in countries such as France, Belgium, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Germany and the United States, with 55 stores each, are the company's biggest markets.
IKEA entered Latin America in February 2010, opening in the Dominican Republic. As for the region's largest markets, on 8 April 2021, a store was opened in Mexico City.
In August 2018, IKEA opened its first store in India, in Hyderabad. There are now stores in Bengaluru and Mumbai.
File:A side of the IKEA building at SM Mall of Asia.jpg|left|thumb|The world's largest IKEA store is located in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines
In November 2021, IKEA opened its largest store in the world, measuring, in the Philippines, at the Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City, Metro Manila.
In March 2022, IKEA announced the closing of all 17 stores in Russia, resulting from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Because of the ongoing war and unimproved situation in Russia, IKEA said on 15 June that it would sell factories, close offices and reduce its workforce. Later it became known that IKEA does not plan to sell its business but expected to return to Russia within two years. By October 2022, IKEA laid off about 10,000 Russian employees. In September 2023, the chain of 14 supermarkets, then owned by Ingka, was bought by the Russian Gazprombank.
IKEA was hit hard by COVID-19 due to lockdowns in various countries, like in the UK and Canada. As a result of fallen demand, its annual catalogue ceased publication after 70 years in print. The prices of their products have risen significantly in 2022 owning to rising costs and inflation. In April 2022, IKEA shut down one of its stores in Guiyang when sales took a significant hit from the pandemic. Because of strict COVID-19 lockdowns in China, IKEA closed another store in Shanghai by July 2022.
On 10 August 2022, IKEA opened its first store in Chile, the first store in South America. Another store opened in Colombia in September 2023 in Bogotá, soon to be followed by a store in Peru.
First store opening in each location
Store layout
Traditional store layout
IKEA stores are typically blue buildings with yellow accents – Sweden's national colours. They are often designed in a one-way layout, leading customers counter-clockwise along what IKEA calls "the long natural way", designed to encourage the customer to see the store in its entirety. There are often shortcuts to other parts of the showroom.The sequence first involves going through the furniture showrooms, making note of selected items. The showroom usually consists of simulated room settings where customers can see the actual furniture in use, e.g., a living room with a sofa, a TV set, a bookcase, and a dining table, accessorized with plants, cushions, rugs, lamps, plates, glasses, and cutlery. Showroom sections are usually displayed in the order of the rooms of a house: living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and children’s rooms. The customer then collects a shopping cart and proceeds to an open-shelf "Market Hall" warehouse for smaller items. Lastly, the self-service furniture warehouse stores the showroom products in flat-pack form for the customer to collect the ones previously noted. Sometimes, they are directed to collect products from an external warehouse on the same site or at a site nearby after purchase. Finally, customers pay for their products at a cash register. Not all furniture is stocked at the store level, such as particular sofa colours needing to be shipped from a warehouse to the customer's home or the store.
Most stores follow the layout of having the showroom upstairs with the marketplace and self-service warehouse downstairs. Some stores are single-level, while others have separate warehouses to allow more stock to be kept on-site. Single-level stores are found predominantly in areas where the cost of land would be less than the cost of building a two-level store. Some stores have dual-level warehouses with machine-controlled silos to allow large quantities of stock to be accessed throughout the selling day.
Most IKEA stores offer an "as-is" or "bargain corner" area at the end of the warehouse, just before the cash registers. Returned, damaged, and formerly showcased products are displayed here and sold with a significant discount.
In March 2022, IKEA swiftly exited the Russian market, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, leading to a surplus of items that were earmarked for the Russian market in IKEA's warehouses. To offload these items quickly, IKEA sold them in a number of non-Russian IKEA stores near the bargain corner at a discount.
Alternative smaller store formats
The majority of IKEA stores are located outside of city centres, primarily because of land cost and traffic access. Smaller store formats have been unsuccessfully tested in the past.New formats for full-size stores
A new format for a full-size, city centre store was introduced with the opening of the Manchester store, situated in Ashton-under-Lyne in 2006. Another store, in Coventry, opened in December 2007. The store had seven floors and a flow different from that of other IKEA stores; however, it closed down in 2020 due to the site being deemed unsuitable for future business. IKEA's Southampton store that opened in February 2009 is also in the city centre and built in an urban style similar to that of the Coventry store. IKEA built these stores in response to UK government restrictions on large retail establishments outside city centres.Adaptation to Japanese market
Japan was another market where IKEA performed badly, exited the market completely, and then re-entered with an alternative store design and layout with which it finally found success. IKEA entered the Japanese market in 1974 through a franchise arrangement with a local partner, only to withdraw in failure in 1986. Japan was one of the first markets outside its original core European market. Despite Japan being the then-second-largest economy in the world, IKEA did not adapt its store layout strategy to the Japanese consumer. Japanese consumers did not have a culture of DIY furniture assembly, and many in the early days had no way to haul flat-packs home to their small apartments. Nor did the store layouts familiar to European customers initially make sense to Japanese consumers, so before re-entering the Japanese market in 2006, IKEA management did extensive local market research on more effective store layouts. One area of local adaptation was the room displays common to every IKEA store worldwide. Rather than just replicate a European room layout, the Japan management was careful to set up room displays more closely resembling Japanese apartment rooms, such as one for "a typical Japanese teenage boy who likes baseball and computer games".Inner-city stores
IKEA adapted its store location and services to the 'inner-city' format for expansion in China, unlike other countries where IKEA stores, for economic and planning restrictions reasons, tend to be just outside city centres. In China, planning restrictions are less of an issue due to the lack of cars for much of its customer base. Accordingly, in store design alternatives, IKEA has had to offer store locations and formats closer to public transportation. The store design alternative thinking and strategy in China has been to locate stores to facilitate access for non-car owning customers. In some locations in China, IKEA stores can be found not in the usual suburban or near airport locations like other countries, but rather places such as downtown shopping centres with a 'mini-IKEA' store to attract shoppers. One store design alternative trend IKEA has implemented has been 'pop-up' stores along social media platforms in its advertising strategy, for the first time as a company, to reach new customer demographics while still reinforcing its global brand locally in China.IKEA moved into Topshop's former flagship store on 214 Oxford Street, central London, with the store officially opening on 1 May 2025.