Word: ikea
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...IKEA experience is instant gratification cloaked in cleverness. Upon entering a store, parents can deposit children in what IKEA calls a ballroom, essentially a giant box filled with thousands of brightly colored balls that becomes a delightfully diverting wallowing ground. Supplied by the store with a 196-page catalog, note pad, pencil and measuring tape, shoppers then stroll through seductively decorated settings of furniture from 1,500 worldwide suppliers. Office chairs? IKEA has 14 designs. Lamps? There are versions that stand and hang and squat, each labeled in English, Danish, German, French and Swedish. The displays include kitchen tables from...
Sometimes, though, shoppers are dismayed by SORRY OVERSOLD tags on popular pieces. Though some frustrated customers think IKEA is always out of all the goodies they want, the actual total hovers at 200 to 300 of 13,000 items. To keep prices down, IKEA buys a whole year's supply of goods in advance for all its stores throughout the world, then bets that its projections are right...
...average of 400 Dale City customers a day dine on Swedish food in IKEA's strategically located restaurant, just off the showroom floor. Most-asked-for dish: Swedish meatballs. Says Micha Baur, the West German who is the store's manager: "Very often people make their buying decisions in our restaurant. You can overhear them. 'Should we buy this table or that table? What do you think, honey?' " After making the choice, shoppers proceed to the self- service warehouse, where they find the goods on neat rows of shelves...
...IKEA is run by missionaries who were charged up by Ingvar Kamprad, 61, a Swede who started the company when he was only 17. He synthesized the name IKEA from his initials and those of Elmtaryd, his family's farm, and Agunnaryd, the community where he grew up and where he began the business some 40 years ago by selling ball-point pens through the mail. IKEA's management is still youthful, light on titles and neckties and thoroughly gung ho. The spirit is whipped up in seminars for employees on "the IKEA way." One thing stressed in the sessions...
After making such a promising start in the U.S., IKEA is hoping to expand across the country. Says an excited Bjorn Bayley, president of IKEA's North American operations: "What will really be fun is when we get to places like Minnesota. They still speak Swedish there...