Ikea is a behemoth. The home furnishing company uses 1 percent of the planet’s lumber, it says, and the 530 million cubic feet of wood used to make Ikea furniture each year pulls with its own kind of twisted gravity. For many, a sojourn to the enormous blue-and-yellow store winds up defining the space in which they sit, cook, eat and sleep.
All that wood is turned into furniture that tries to bring a spare, modern aesthetic to the masses. “We’re talking about democratizing design,” Marty Marston, a product public relations manager at Ikea, told me.
The furniture is also sold according to some unique economics. In many cases, Ikea’s famously affordable pieces get dramatically cheaper year after year. In others, prices creep up. In some cases, products disappear entirely. The result is an ever-evolving, survival-of-the-fittest catalog that wields an enormous amount of influence over residential interiors.
As we tour Ikea’s unique economics, you may want to have a seat in the company’s Poäng chair, 1.5 million of which are sold each year. Ikea’s been hawking them around the world for the past four decades, taking over living room square footage and modern design sensibilities with just a hex wrench and some wordless instructions.
More here – FiveThirtyEight
PS: Just for the record I f@#4en hate Ikea, I hate their furniture and I particularly hate their stores.
Never been to one and proud of the fact !!!!!!
The first household I set up (rented 100 year old house in Island Bay, Wellington in the early 180’s) was mostly furnished with beer crates supplied curtesy of local pubs. Usually without their consent. If I was setting up from scratch now I would use Ikea. Not everyone can afford designer furniture, Chris.
Totally agree about the stores, but they are a masterpiece in sales generating layout design. Like it or love it, it is done with a commercial purpose so I guess we have to respect that.
That should be “1980’s”
Not everyone can afford….. there’s a poverty mindset right there. Your self-talk is killing you mate.
It is correctly pronounced “A Kia”
As in the sentence “A Kia is a great car.”
Isn’t it?