Great Ikea: A Brand for all the People
Author: Elen Lewis
Publisher: Cyan Books, 192 pages
ALMOST my entire book collection sits in Ikea bookcases, more specifically Billy bookcases in white foil. The Billy that contains my extremely precious out-of-print books have a glass door that I installed myself. My two younger children sleep on Ikea beds and I have an Ikea armchair, sofa bed, stool, rugs and bathroom trolley, plus various Ikea odds and ends like coasters, plastic clips, electrical two-pin adapters and photo frames. Sometimes I flip through the Ikea catalogue and imagine my house fully kitted out with stuff from the Swedish furniture company.
I think a great many Malaysians (those who live in the Klang Valley anyway) feel the same way. Most of my close friends love Ikea products and the store itself. My kids like the playroom and the restaurant. I like the free coffee (with my Ikea Friends card) and the money-back policy for goods returned within 30 days.
No, I’m not going to continue singing Ikea’s praises for a further eight paragraphs. However, I did want to review this book partly because I am a fan of the furniture retailer and wanted to know more about the company, its history and policies.
Great Ikea is one of the Great Brand Stories books. Other top brands featured in the series include Guinness, Starbucks, Adidas and (coming soon) Banyan Tree. The cover blurb says that the books “focus on brands that have not only reaped huge profits ... but also established themselves as icons of contemporary society.”
The books should be of interest to those in the fields of business, marketing and advertising, but I daresay consumers (certainly, regular users of any of these brands) would also enjoy them.
I said I was a fan of Ikea but I think I would be more accurately described as having a love-hate relationship with the store. Here’s what I dislike about it: it “tricks” me into thinking I need stuff that I really have no use for; very often, when I have tried to assemble furniture myself, I end up with something rickety and lopsided; in the showroom, walls are built around furniture and accessories - just try making everything fit in your hovel in Kelana Jaya; the chipboard shelves that suffer from worse sag than even women whose bra size is 38DD; and seven out of 10 times, what I want is out of stock.
One of the things I learnt from reading this book is that I am not alone in my ambivalent feelings about Ikea. In most European countries, things are even worse for Ikea customers. The stores over there are usually situated in the middle of nowhere, whereas it takes me just 10 minutes to get to the store in Mutiara Damansara, Selangor. Also, in Europe, customers have no choice but to lug their flatpacks home and assemble the furniture themselves. Unlike in Malaysia, there is no delivery or assembly service. We are one of the few markets (including Singapore, China and Japan) where these services are available for an extra charge.
The whole idea of self-service is to keep prices down. Saving money is what Ikea is all about. The man who started it all, Ingvar Kamprad (his initials are the I and K in Ikea, while E and A stand for Elmtaryd and Agunnard, the farm Kamprad grew up on and his hometown respectively), is famous/infamous/notorious/admired for his frugality. Managers have tiny expense accounts. When they travel, they fly economy class. And they stay at budget motels.
At the Ikea HQ in Almhult, Sweden, the carpark is filled with its employees’ decidedly unflashy cars. Rumour has it, however, that this is because Ikea staff are smart enough to leave their Porsches at home!
I really enjoyed this book and it’s made me curious about the other titles in the series. What you get here is an in-depth look at the retail giant and the people behind it, encompassing the brand’s history, philosophy and culture. You learn what makes Ikea tick, why it’s a success and why that success is often a long time coming and certainly not guaranteed.
There is lots of trivia, anecdotes and gossip. And Elen Lewis’s writing is totally accessible – it’s like she’s chatting to you over a plate of Swedish meatballs. But this is not an ad in book’s clothing. Although, much of Ikea’s story will impress, there is quite a bit that is dodgy too. Nazism, child labour accusations, eco-unfriendly materials, not to mention furniture that you’re supposed to self-assemble but comes with incomprehensible instructions are just some of the black marks against the store.
In Malaysia, it’s not even as if the furniture is so cheap that it helps us overlook Ikea’s faults. Dollar for dollar, I reckon Malaysians pay more for Ikea furniture than the rest of the world. For example, Ikea’s Mammut three-legged plastic stool costs US$6.99 (RM23) in the States, S$5.90 (RM13) in Singapore and ... wait for it ... RM19.90 in Malaysia. Dollar for dollar, Malaysians pay the most for the stool and, even considering the exchange rate, it’s cheaper for Malaysians to buy the stool in Singapore. It’s the same with other pieces of furniture, small and large. If anything, reading this book has made me think longer and harder before making a purchase at Ikea. I’m still buying though.
Interestingly, Elen Lewis reveals, in her foreword, that although Ikea agreed to co-operate in the writing of this book, it later changed its mind. I wonder if the company would answer my burning question about the cost (in Malaysia) of the Mammut stool.
