Marketing Concept in Practice at IKEA

INTRODUCTION

Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish catalogue king, founded IKEA in 1947. IKEA is an acronym for his name, the farm and hometown, Elmtaryd, Agunaryd. IKEA has evolved over the years and has developed into a unique concept offering affordable quality home furnishings within numerous stores scattered across the globe. IKEA is guided by a corporate philosophy spelled out in the founder's quasi-religious book 'Testament of a Furniture Retailer' .

IKEA emphasizes on responding to the home furnishing needs of people throughout the world, it even changes some of its designs to suit the different cultures (yet maintaining the typical Swedish functional style). IKEA mainly designs furniture to suit people who want to improve their home and create a better everyday life. This is epitomised in their mission statement that claims, 'Offer a wide range of home furnishing items of good design and function, excellent quality and durability, at prices so low that the majority can afford to buy them' .

English: IKEA store, Southampton

Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, holding a lecture...

Wembley, IKEA home furnishings store - geograph.or...

IKEA believes in working closely with manufacturers, suppliers, designers and other specialists. Expertise of these various stakeholders is pooled in to come up with innovative techniques to reduce costs so that these can be passed on to the customers. Its customer base consists of people who are actively seeking better value for money in their products. Hence, we can deduce from this that IKEA sells furniture and home accessories 'for the wise but not for the rich'. The company looks for solutions at every stage to help minimise costs and provide extra value - design, production, transportation, etc. Today, IKEA is one the largest volume furniture chains with total sales in excess of $4 billion. IKEA has more than 131 stores spread over 29 countries worldwide.

IKEA is probably one of the most well-known examples used when describing the...