Ikea

If you’re one of the thousands of avid fans who read this blog religiously, you might recall that in the summer of 2008, Geoffrey and I took an urban field trip to the new Ikea in Redhook, Brooklyn, which opened that June, to provide residents of the NYC Metropolitan area with a warehouse-sized shopping facility at which to purchase cheap and interesting furniture. And very reasonably priced scented candles in reusable containers. And a lot of other cool stuff that you convince yourself you need to own because it costs a dollar. Today happened to be a beautiful day to get outside of Manhattan, ... Read Full Story

Sweden's billionaire Kamprad family are considering selling the Habitat furniture and design chain, whose sales have been hit by the economic downturn, the group's chief executive said on Sunday. Parent company ICAF Antillen, acting for the Kamprads, has launched a "strategic review" that "may or may not lead to a sale of the company," chief executive Mark Saunders said in a statement, confirming a London Sunday Times report. Founded by Sir Terence Conran in 1964, Habitat employs some 1,500 people with 38 stores in Britain, 24 in France, six in Spain, five in Germany and retail partnerships in a further 14 markets. Ingvar Kamprad, ... Read Full Story

The wholesome Scandinavian image of furniture and lifestyle giant Ikea has been rudely shaken by a new book which claims the company is hostile to foreign employees and uses Stasi-style secret police methods to spy on its thousands of staff worldwide. The explosive charges are made by a former senior Ikea executive Johan Stenebo, a Swede who started working for the company at one of its German outlets outside Hamburg over 20 years ago and rose to a senior management position. He resigned last year. His book, entitled Sanningen om Ikea (The Truth about Ikea), contains wide-ranging allegations about a company which has become ... Read Full Story

Swedish flat-pack giant Ikea must cut more jobs than previously announced as the financial crisis continues to weigh on demand for its furniture, founder Ingvar Kamprad said Tuesday. Kamprad did not say exactly how many workers would be affected. In the past 10 months, Ikea has already slashed 5,000 jobs globally after sales dropped 7 percent below budget. "We need to reduce personnel further mainly within production and logistics," he told Swedish daily Dagens Industri. "It's about adjusting to sales being far below budget and becoming more efficient." Ikea spokeswoman Charlotte Lindgren said the cuts were meant to improve efficiency at existing stores, but ... Read Full Story

IKEA announced that is plans on pouring $77 million into “clean-technology start-ups” within the next few years and would also like to add “green” items such as solar panels to it stores, according to the Cleantech Group. Another IKEA move planned for this fall will be to support sustainability by eliminating its checkout use of plastic bags. British customers have been charged for the use of these bags for about two years now. More than 380 billion plastic bags are estimated to be trashed each year in the United States alone. Endeavors to advertise new and affordable green technologies within the next several years ... Read Full Story