Ikea

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

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

(before) I’ll tell you this for free: you just haven’t lived till you’ve visited the Ikea in Thurrock, Essex during school half-term. For those of you not in the know , this is the Ikea located at the (in)famous Lakeside Shopping Centre , a large American-style shopping mall full of the usual retail chains with the requisite disgusting food court and the requisite annoying crowds of shoppers dragging their screaming and bawling children behind them. Lakeside even has a West Ham shop (no surprise, that). Believe it or not, I actually saw a pink tea kettle at a department store in Lakeside. I kid ... Read Full Story

Written by Mac Carey So, just how popular is IKEA? It’s estimated that 10% of living Europeans were conceived on an IKEA-produced bed. It’s time you learned a little more about the company, its reclusive owner Ingvar Kamprad (who may or may not be worth more than Bill Gates), and his continuing quest to install flat pack, streamlined fixtures across the seven continents. 1. It All Started With a Car The inspiration for IKEA’s design philosophy came when taking the legs off of a chair to fit it into a car. IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was so irritated by the experience that he developed ... Read Full Story