Thirty years of “first times”

1943: Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd

IKEA was founded in 1943. Ingvar georgia mobile phone numbers database then seventeen, invested a small sum of money in its creation, which he received from his father for his good grades in school. He gave his business a symbolic name, forever inscribing a Brand Story fragment of his identity in it: Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd – the name of the family farm, Agunnaryd – the neighbouring village. He formally started his business that year, but his entrepreneurial nature had been evident much earlier. As a young boy, he visited local houses and sold matches, and later fish caught in the nearby Lake Möckeln, Christmas cards, seeds, and watches and pens. Most of the operations related to his business took place on the family farm – when Ingvar started studying at a business high school in Gothenburg, his parents stepped in to help.

1943-1948: Stockings and pens

This is an important period in Kamprad’s life – as he himself admitted, it was at this time, during classes on Taylorism theory at a school in Gothenborg, that he discovered a serious gap in thinking about production and sales, in which he saw his opportunity. He realized that all thinking about optimization ended the moment the product came off the production line. He decided that his future lay in distribution. To be successful, he had to find the simplest, most efficient form of distributing the product from the factory to the customer. Although at that time he tried to apply this idea to the import business, a few years later the optimization of transport turned out to be a breakthrough in the history of IKEA furniture.

After finishing school, he worked as an office worker for a short time, then did military service and then officer training. During this entire time, he devoted his evenings and weekends to his business (with the consent of his superiors, whom he convinced to let him take evening sick leave). This period was very demanding, but his business began to develop. Importing pens directly from the manufacturer to customers – shops and bookstores – proved particularly effective. In the resources of the IKEA Museum, you can still find advertisements for pens from this period labelled “Import-IKEA”.

1948: Furniture for Brand Story the first time, for the second time, for the third time!

In the late 1940s, when IKEA’s main competitor in the mail order trade – Gunnar’s Factories in Alvesta – introduced furniture to its offer and successfully sold it, Ingvar decided to follow in his rival’s footsteps. The Småland region 4 common reasons why advertising agencies fail – and how to fix it! rich in forests and talented carpenters, seemed to be the ideal place for this. And so, in 1948, the first furniture was added to IKEA’s offer.

1948-1953

In the mail order brochure “ikea-nytt” (Swedish: ikea-new, author’s note), next to crystal jewellery and leather suitcases, there were first a few chairs and a couple of tables. The next one also included a sofa from Elfs Möbler from Älmhult and a crystal chandelier from Örsjö. Customers ordered using a return coupon from the brochure guinea lists and the factories carried out the shipment. The number of orders heralded success – the Swedes, supported by the government project of favourable loans for buying and furnishing a house (Folkhemmet), looked to the future with optimism and were eager to invest in furniture.

IKEA’s rivals did not remain idle Brand Story – price competition began on the local market. Ingvar did not stop innovating, but it quickly turned out that the competition was merciless in reducing prices – it did not pay attention to poor quality, which is easy to hide behind embellished descriptions in paper brochures. In order to stay on the market and maintain good quality of products, Ingvar had to find a way to convince customers of the good quality of his products,

which he offered at a still favorable price.

The opportunity came shortly after. Ingvar learned that the nearby Albin Lagerblad carpentry factory in Älmhult was closing – he didn’t hesitate for a moment. The former workshop became the first IKEA showroom – the cleaned and refreshed space was filled with the first arrangements of sofas, tables, rugs and lamps, which allowed customers to not only experience the quality of the products, but also imagine how they would look in their homes.

The last brochure of the multi-sector mail order company “ikea-nytt” was delivered to customers in 1952 – on the back they found a coupon enabling them to order the first IKEA catalog containing only furniture. The Lagerblad showroom opened to customers on March 30, 1953 – thus began a new chapter in the history of IKEA.

1953

The year 1953 brought another groundbreaking innovation for IKEA: flat packaging. The concept of shipping furniture partially disassembled, in flat packaging, was already known in the world – it is said that Thonet was the first to use this method in the mid-19th century to ship chairs. However, furniture was not delivered directly to private customers at that time.

Frustrated by frequent shipping damage, Ingvar was particularly interested in an idea from one of his suppliers, Ovendals – an extremely stable table with a new leg adjustment system that would allow customers to easily assemble it at home. Flat-packing could not only prevent damage, but also significantly reduce operating costs. Three self-assembly tables – DELFI, RIGA and KÖKSA – joined the brand’s range at that time, and “we hate air” remains IKEA’s mantra when it comes to shipping.

1958: A Real Showroom

The next step, and the biggest investment to date, was the opening of a second, larger showroom in Älmhult, which soon became the first IKEA store. Ingvar Brand Story had already understood that people were willing to travel far to see and buy IKEA furniture. He entrusted the design of the building to architect Claes Knutson, and the construction cost 1 million kroner – the equivalent of 15 million kroner or 1.5 million euros today.