46 THE LITTLE CAR’S CONTRIBUTION
TO LOW-COST FURNITURE

If you visit the IKEA website you can read all about its aims.

“At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

Low prices are a cornerstone of the IKEA concept, as it is the low prices that make its well-designed, functional home furnishings so accessible “to the many people”. While numerous means are used to keep the costs low, perhaps one of the most important is all down to the size of one of the first showroom employee’s car.

The story, however, begins in 1943, when with a gift from his father, Ingvar Kampard established his business, using his initials, and those of the name of the farm on which he was born, Elmtaryd, and the village nearby, Agunnaryd, to create an acronym that is the now a world famous brand name.

Ingvar went door to door, selling a wide range of products from pens and wallets to watches and nylon stockings, but he was so successful that soon he couldn’t do all the individual sales calls. He had to change his business model and began advertising in local newspapers, operating a makeshift mail-order service. He used the local milk van to deliver products to the nearby train station. By 1945, he had developed a rudimentary catalogue.

Locally manufactured furniture first showed up in the IKEA product range in 1947 and was so well received that by 1951 Ingvar began to focus solely on furniture, and discontinued all the other products in his catalogue.

In 1953, and in response to increasing competition, the first IKEA furniture showroom opened in the village of Älmhult. This same competition caused other furniture stores and manufacturers to put pressure on suppliers to boycott IKEA which led to the critical decision to design its own furniture beginning in 1955. It was not long after this that the fateful event happened.

One of the first workers at the storeroom purchased one of IKEA’s Lövet tables. But that night as he prepared to take it home he discovered that it was too big to fit in the back of his little car. Ultimately the worker removed the legs from the table so that it would fit into his car and wouldn’t get damaged during the worker’s journey.

Word got round about the event and it started Ingvar and his team thinking about creating furniture that was speciffically designed to be flat-packed.

In 1956, IKEA began testing the concept of flat-packs and its potential to reduce costs through reduced transportation expenses, lower storage space requirements, less transportation damage and a reduction in labour costs.

The IKEA Lövet table became the first flat-packed IKEA product and flat-packing and self-assembly become integral parts of the IKEA business concept.

And the moral is that necessity can be the mother of invention. Should you take a fresh look at some of the challenges facing you and your brand?