IKEA is a Swedish home furnishing retailer and one of the largest furniture manufacturing companies in the world. IKEA produces low-cost flat pack furniture, adornments, washroom, and kitchen accessories in their global retail shops.
IKEA is currently headquartered in Delft, Netherlands.
IKEA History
IKEA is a home furnishings retailer and is currently the world’s biggest furniture manufacturer in the mid-21st century.
The brand has around 300 retail stores in the world. IKEA mainly specialized in low-cost products and sold their products to customers in a flat pack form.
IKEA was established in 1943 in Sweden and still displays its initial design. The store outsides are designed in the shades of the Swedish banner (blue and yellow), in-store eateries serve Swedish nourishment, and the organization’s items convey Swedish names.
The initial days
IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad, whose grandparents were German-speaking people who came to the Småland area of Southern Sweden. Kamprad was an intelligent merchant.
In 1943, at age 17, he began the brand, assembling its name from his initials and the underlying letters of his family’s farm and his hometown.
In 1948 he started selling furniture, and in 1951 he distributed the yearly IKEA catalog.
In 1953, in the town of Älmhult, he opened a showroom where clients looked at the product displays and placed orders. The principal retail location was opened in Älmhult in 1958.
The success
In the year 1956, flat packing furniture was introduced. It was a key factor in diminishing the organization’s expenses and empowering it to cut costs.
During the late 1950s, IKEA’s miserable rivals forced Swedish producers to slice off provisions to the organization.
IKEA reacted by embracing its design work and collaborating with outside providers from the outset in Denmark and Poland. Later the organization set up a manufacturing auxiliary called Swedwood.
IKEA turned into a global retailer when the retail store in Norway opened in 1963. The organization extended past the Nordic countries in 1973 when a store was built up in Switzerland.
IKEA Brand Value
In 2019, the organization created a worldwide income surpassing 41 billion Euros. One key upper hand of IKEA is its broad information about the clients.
The organization comprehends the buying factors which impact clients to purchase furniture and actualizes the prescribed procedures to actuate that choice.
IKEA offers low costs and a variety of items, continually presenting new items in the market which are trendy and eye-catching for the clients.
Besides, the organization offers an amazingly wide item range and a positive shopping experience. For Americans, the brand IKEA was the first company that came to mind at the time of buying furniture.
The reason for the brand value
In early 2019, IKEA was the seventh most important retailer in the world, making it the most significant furniture retail brand, with an estimated $19 billion.
The brand has established 450 stores worldwide and has 50 online business markets.
As per reports published in 2019, IKEA stores witnessed a billion people. IKEA has come up with features curated for the offices as well.
IKEA Brand Strategies
1 . Market segmentation and target customers
The target market of IKEA is the worldwide working class. It sells great quality and solid yet moderate home furniture items. The market has been segmented so that the customers willing to pay a moderate amount for a high-quality product are kept in the loop.
Through its reasonably priced and great quality items, the brand has the ability to pull in the millennial and white-collar class customers. The clients and customers are also given a positive shopping experience.
2 . Marketing & Advertising
IKEA focuses on marketing and advertising campaigns with a great deal of focus. The brand uses display advertising like hoardings and billboards and print media such as newspapers, TV, and online ads to advertise its brand.
IKEA has come up with an innovative advertising campaign in recent years. The brand thinks that social clutter and gender fights can be resolved and avoided. They have used this idea and made advertisements based on the concept.
Their product list is accessible both in print and on the internet. Aside from that, an all-encompassing rendition of the list is accessible on the IKEA website.
The IKEA sites, local distribution channels, leaflets, and publicities are additionally utilized for the advertisement of the brand.
3 . Digital channels for advertising
IKEA utilizes both customary and digital channels to publicize and advertise the brand.
It has utilized social media platforms for pulling in and connecting with clients. Separate localized pages are utilized to draw in clients on Facebook. Pinterest, Twitter, and Google.
Presently, IKEA is using content that is tailored from the testimonials acquired from the clients, and this is a technique of letting the world know about how IKEA products have changed their living and expectations.
Another key region where IKEA has established itself greatly is supportability. Individuals and businesses are a significant center zone at IKEA. This has helped the brand create a more grounded brand image in front of the world.
4 . Localization of IKEA
IKEA began growing to abroad markets, and the brand began to analyze the reason for its immense popularity outside the native country.
It was not necessary that the furnishings or the glasses were famous in Sweden.
There were good quality furnishing brands in US and UK as well. IKEA chose to carry changes to its items and advertising procedures and adjust them to the nearby markets.
It examined nearby markets and their preferred styles before presenting items in those new markets, following which the items began selling and becoming well known. The localization of the brand has helped it to conquer foreign markets as well.
5 . CSR strategy
IKEA has given equal importance to the CSR activities of the brand. The brand has put resources into CSR and successfully managed its operations. This is one of the reasons IKEA has the ability to pull in a large chunk of the customer base towards itself.
- IKEA has successfully planted more than one million trees in the UK, and it looking forward to being an energy-positive company by the end of 2020.
- Manageability is one of the five components of the business model at IKEA. By putting resources into increasingly demanding items, the brand is putting resources into a greener future the brand.
- IKEA has aimed to reduce the use of conventional energy, and by the end of 2030, it has aimed to use a hundred percent renewable energy and make the environment plastic free.
- The brand has also regulated the gender ratio within the organization as women constitute around 45% of the employees, and most of them are managers.
Conclusion
IKEA has transformed into a successful brand today. The brand has many achievements and is currently the world’s leader in the furniture industry. Yet IKEA is not owned by shareholders, and many companies and NGOs control it.
IKEA has reacted to the social difficulties by utilizing item plans and advertising strategies that suit the local markets. The most significant things to be effective in any market are item quality and the marketing strategy. IKEA has dealt with these two factors quite well, and the future is awaiting more innovations from it.
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