He grew up on a very poor farm inElmtaryd, Agunnaryd, Sweden.
His entrepreneurial nature began to blossom at age six, when he started selling matches around the neighborhood.
By age 10, according toSweden.se, he’d expanded his business.
Kamprad sold Christmas decorations, fish, and pencils, and delivered them throughout the neighborhood from his bicycle.
Perhaps those early sales days later inspired IKEA’seclectic selections.
And this wasn’t some “everyone gets a ribbon” kind of parenting.
Kamprad wasdyslexicand his success in class did not come easily.
So, his father gave him a little bit of money for his excellent marks.
But instead of blowing it all on movies and clothes like an average teenager,Kamprad startedhis own business.
Isn’t it more fun to order an “Ektorp,” rather than a plain old sofa?
Well, IKEA didn’t decide to give their products quirky titles just for fun.
The naming system is actuallya productof Kamprad’s dyslexia.
So,he gave everything a name.
For example, Expedit (a name of a bookshelf) means “shop assistant.”
Perhaps the most famous of all product names is Billy, the plain bookcase owned by every college grad.
It got itsname from employee Billy Likjedhal.
I wonder if he uses his furniture fame as a pick up line?
“Hey, that bookshelf you have?
Yeah, that’s me.
“He must get all the ladies.
But no one but Kamprad knows exactly how much he makes from the company.
In fact, IKEA’s financial structure is designed to hide who all the money is going to.
The bright people atFortunemagazine couldn’t even figure it out.
If anyone wants to pry the information from Kamprad’s sons' hands, good luck.
That’ll get you a lot of Billy bookshelves.
In fact, their first attempt at American business went pretty badly.
In 1985, they opened a store inKing of Prussia, PA, just outside of Philadelphia.
Everything was measured in centimeters and a lot of the sizes didn’t suit American tastes.
According toTheNew York Times, in 1992, IKEA considered pulling the plug on American efforts all together.
Luckily, they decided instead to delve into intense market research to really find out where they went wrong.
Now, IKEA places a premium on market research whenexpanding into new territory.
They’ll send a live-in anthropologist to study you
How exactly do they delineate specific cultural differences?
But IKEA learns all of those details because they take research seriously.
Well, maybe notyetanyway.
It sounded great, but the results?
For $1000, people expected a lot more.
In addition to their 340 stores worldwide, they’ve begun building a village in East London.
Despite owning the little town, there are no plans for a signature store in that location.
Germans make up15 percent of all IKEA’s sales.
Instead, it tells a fictionalized version of Kamprad’s life through Swedish folk songs.
By all accounts, the IKEA musical went pretty deep.
Looking for clips online?Subsequent productionshave also gone under the nameIngvar!
In Europe, IKEA sells actual houses.
Called the BoKlok concept, their goal is to provide affordable housing.
But if you’re looking to buy your own IKEA mansion, look someplace else.
These living spaces are designed tobe small, efficient, and green.
In Sweden, there are over 100 BoKlok developments.
They’ve also branched out intoFinlandand the UK, though in the UK,BoKlok was not so popular.
In 2009,the Independentreported that of 36 apartments built, 20 remained empty.
It changed the furniture industry
Before IKEA, most people thought of furniture as a major purchase.
It was meant to last for years and years, potentially handed down through the generations.
IKEAchanged that idea completely.
It was easy to go buy another.
That might (accidentally) be true.
Then, if an argument starts over one of the many choices, that begets a cycle of frustration.
All these factors put together make IKEA and pretty terribledateidea,testing even the bestof relationships.
Well, that’s about to change.
We are now into the implementation phase of making it possible for you to click your furniture together.”
IKEA dreams coming true, thanks to the new wedge dowel.
But a rash of unwanted sleepovers has upset the furniture giant.
Our policy is to search the store before closing.
All our stores in Sweden are equipped with motion detectors to ensure everyone’s safety.”
Sweden’s not messing around, so verify to play by IKEA’s rules on their home turf.
They made a formerly expensive part of living into an affordable and easily-accessible shopping experience.
The fact that the company continues to makeaffordability a priorityover profit, is pretty incredible.
