History of IKEA. Ingvar Kamprad and IKEA, the story of the creator and company

Year founded: 1943

Founder: Ingvar Kamprad

Industry: retail

Location: Netherlands, Delft, South Holland

Parent company: Stichting INGKA Foundation

Brand: IKEA

Production figures

		Gross profit	Net profit	Operating profit	Amount of assets	Equity	Number of employees
				Operating income

IKEA brand value according to company estimates:

Year	Interbrand, $ billion	Millward Brown Optimor, $ billion	Brand Finance, $ billion
2014	15,885	19,367
2015	16,541	17,025	18,540
2016		18,082	17,009

Company history

Ingvar Feodor Kamprad (Swedish: Ingvar Feodor Kamprad), founder of IKEA

IKEA (“IKEA”, also sometimes pronounced “Ikea”) is a Dutch manufacturing and trading company, owner of one of the world’s largest retail chains selling furniture and household goods. Full name: IKEA International Group. Headquarters - in the city of Delft, province of South Holland.

The company has Swedish roots and maintains the image of a Swedish company in all marketing communications. IKEA designs and sells furniture and related home products aimed at the mass consumer. The concept of IKEA furniture is that customers assemble most of the furniture range at home themselves, and goods are also transported in flat boxes, thereby reducing logistics and service costs, which leads to a lower cost of goods.

The president of the company is Mikael Ohlsson. On the list richest people world, compiled by Forbes magazine for 2008, the founder and co-owner of IKEA Ingvar Kamprad ranks seventh with a fortune of $31 billion.

Net shopping centers the company had 231 stores in 24 countries (at the end of 2008), mostly in Europe; 273 stores in 25 countries (May 2010); Taking into account stores opened on a franchise basis, the network consists of 325 stores in 41 countries (2013).

Today, IKEA purchases goods from more than 1,300 suppliers in more than 50 countries. Swedwood, part of the IKEA concern, owns more than 30 furniture and woodworking enterprises in 11 countries.

The company regularly publishes a catalog of goods presented in its stores, distributed free of charge. The circulation of the catalog in 2008 was 200 million copies of the catalog in 52 editions in 27 languages.

IKEA was founded in 1943. At that time, the main product for sale was fountain pens. If now they are on every corner, then at that time it was innovative product. Back then, in Russia they wrote with pens, and the foreign novelty from IKEA was only available to the upper strata of society. The pens were supplied from France, and the supplier required the 17-year-old entrepreneur to found legal entity, because he has no intention of doing business with a private individual.

The founder of the company, Ingvar Kamprad, was born in the town of Elmhult (Sweden). There were several businessmen in his family, but none of them were lucky enough to create a million-dollar brand. Moreover, there was tragic story: Ingvar's grandfather committed suicide because... could not pay creditors. As sad as it may be, not all business stories end well. Interest in trading activities The child started having it when he was five years old. Back then he sold matches, but the older he got, the more immersed he became in the trade. Future founder major brand sold fish, seeds and Christmas cards. Actually, this was Ingvar’s entire experience and his entire education; he never studied business and marketing at popular institutions and never read specialized literature. And even now the head of one of the world's largest companies has no education. What the teenager learned from his experience (mistakes, very attentive attitude towards the consumer) was enough to create the IKEA company.

In a short period of time, IKEA, which was a small store, has grown into a multimillion-dollar brand. Today, only a few companies are ready to compete in the market for the sale of furniture and construction products. Ingvar Kamprad managed to realize his full potential, and thanks to this potential, the whole world learned about IKEA. His example should be followed by creating own business, and be inspired by history. Kamprad's success can only be compared with the success of Henry Ford's business - no less outstanding personality in world history.

IKEA in Russia

In Russia, IKEA's interests are represented by its subsidiaries. IKEA MOS LLC (Trade and Real Estate) is developing the Mega shopping center chain, procurement is handled by IKEA Torg LLC (represented by offices in Moscow and Novosibirsk), and direct sales are carried out by IKEA Dom LLC. The first IKEA complex opened in Khimki in March 2000, the first “Mega” (area - 150 thousand m², investment volume - $200 million) - in December 2002, near the southern outskirts of Moscow. As of September 29, 2011, there were 14 chain stores in Russia (including 3 in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg and one each in Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Omsk, Ufa, Samara ).

The first IKEA store in Russia opened on March 22, 2000. This was the third attempt to enter the Russian market. In 1988, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad met with Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov. During this meeting, an agreement was reached to open IKEA stores in Russian cities with a population of more than 1 million people. However, the fall of the USSR prevented these plans. The second attempt was in 1993, but even then insurmountable obstacles arose. The third attempt coincided with economic crisis 1998, but ultimately turned out to be successful.

Brand history

IKEA are just the first letters of the general name. The abbreviation stands for:

I - Ingvar;

K - Kamprad;

E - the letter means the company of the father and grandfather;

A - church parish where Ingvar confessed.

After the creation of the company, supplies of fountain pens did not stop; sales grew, as did profits. The founder of the company already had the opportunity to advertise in publications, and this was important for doing business. However, all this is indirectly related to the main business idea that the company is pursuing today. On your own the real way IKEA's development began in the forties. It was then that Ingvar noticed that Swiss furniture was quite expensive and inaccessible to ordinary people who lived on wages. At that moment, he decided to correct the paradigm of things in the market, and his first step was to transform the company into a furniture store.

IKEA primarily sold only chairs and tables, and they all had proper names, which was an innovative solution. Such a simple and simple move allowed Ingvar to quickly get ahead of his main competitors. Here everything worked on the principle of word of mouth: people told each other that a cheap store had opened in their town, and that every thing had its own name.

The result met even the wildest expectations - sales volumes increased significantly, and this made it possible to buy own factory for the production of furniture, albeit a small one. In 1951, such cheap furniture began to appear on the market that people began to buy it without hesitation. Of course, they lived in a country where the price of furniture was extremely high, and the arrival of sensationally cheap units on the market had the effect of an exploding bomb. Not a single manufacturer was able to wage a fair fight with Kamprad in the market, and many sellers began to play the game dishonestly. In particular, they put serious pressure on IKEA's suppliers and they were forced to boycott. This, of course, slowed down development. Because of this, Komprad went to Poland, where he purchased many parts for furniture. Despite the need to transport them, this made it possible to significantly reduce costs. Now IKEA was selling prefabricated furniture, and this was a new breakthrough.

This was followed by the next move, aimed at further reducing the cost and lowering the market value of the product. This could be achieved by refusing delivery. Now the buyers themselves delivered the furniture to their homes and, given its small dimensions (the furniture was prefabricated), this was quite easy to do.

The assembly process was extremely simple, since Ingvar took care of design features of your product. Any piece of furniture could be assembled by a person who had no idea what a prefabricated structure was. This was greatly facilitated by clear instructions.

On January 1, 2012, IKEA carried out an internal resale of its brand for $11.2 billion, with the seller being the Liechtenstein-registered company Interogo, controlled by Ingvar Kamprad, and the buyer being a subsidiary of IKEA itself, the Dutch Ikea Systems. The purpose of the deal was called “consolidation and simplification of the structure of the business group”; the press expressed opinions that the significance of the deal was that now trademark IKEA has a very definite cost. According to Forbes, the sale of the brand by a Liechtenstein company to a Dutch company at a market price of at the moment was beneficial to IKEA: wholesale is managed from Switzerland, and the cash desk and management company located in Belgium, both countries have very favorable taxation.

The company's product names consist of one word. Most of the names are of Swedish origin. Although there are a few notable exceptions, the bulk of products are named according to a specially designed system.

The soundtrack to the movie "Fight Club" contains a song called "IKEA Man". In the film main character talks about how he had a mania for furnishing his apartment with furniture and things bought from IKEA.

If we compare the price level of IKEA, then on average, any furniture is 20-30% cheaper.

Sources of information

Wikipedia, uni-business.ru

Love stories

Once upon a time, several years ago, an IKEA store opened near St. Petersburg. One of my friends told me about it, and she told me about it not as a furniture store, but as a store that has a wonderful cafeteria, where a sausage roll and soda cost 15 rubles, and you can drink as much soda as you want. At that time, I was just starting to live separately from my parents, there wasn’t much money, and I decided to go and look at this wonderful store. To say that he made a lasting impression on me is not enough; I was completely delighted. I got the feeling that the city finally has a furniture and accessories store with a European approach to the production and sale of furniture! This allowed me to buy the first piece of furniture in my life - a large bed (which, by the way, is still alive). Well, the hot dog and soda, of course, were also very tasty. Several years have passed, there is a lot of furniture, even in a rented apartment, from Ikea, my husband and I share their values, we like their design, and for our apartment, which is about to be ours, we made a joint decision to buy furniture only from "Ikea". Now we walk through the halls of two stores (since, in addition to “Dybenko”, the “Parnas” store has opened) and look at the interiors and the designers’ finds not dreamily and hypothetically, but quite concretely, and we constantly use planning programs, very convenient for calculating costs and selection of accessories for the apartment. So I hope to spend most of my life with Ikea!

(12 ) votes

IKEA is by far the world's most popular retail chain selling furniture and home goods. Founded back in 1943 by a seventeen-year-old Swedish boy, the store has grown into a giant company with revenue of almost €32 billion in 2015. Today, IKEA has more than 380 stores in 48 countries. In our review, little-known and very fun fact about this company.

1. Wood for IKEA

IKEA buys and uses about 1% of all commercial wood produced in the world. This makes this retailer the third largest consumer of wood on the planet (the first two places are occupied by Lowe's and Home Depot).

2. Special taxes for IKEA

IKEA pays one of the lowest tax rates in the world - just 3.5%. This is because the chain of stores is technically owned by a Dutch company, which in turn is owned by a Dutch non-profit organization.

3. The most successful entrepreneur is the founder of IKEA

IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad is the most successful entrepreneur in Swedish history. After selling matchboxes, pens and nylon stockings as a child, Kamprad founded IKEA as a mail-order company.

4. Annual price reduction

Increased efficiency allows IKEA to actually lower prices every year, rather than every other year, as many other retailers do. On average, prices at IKEA fall by about 2-3% per year.

5. IKEA product names

Many people may have noticed unusual names IKEA furniture. In fact, the chain has its own pattern in furniture names: garden furniture is named after the Swedish islands, rugs are named after Danish place names, and fabrics and curtains are named after women's names.

6. Vase or glass?

When entering the American market, IKEA was faced with the fact that their small flower vases became one of the most popular and best-selling products. After conducting research into why the vases sold so well, it turned out that American consumers were using them as large drinking glasses.

7. IKEA City

IKEA is such a huge company that it decided to build its own city near London. It will be able to accommodate 6,000 people, and all housing (as well as shops, schools and theaters) will be equipped with IKEA furniture.

8. Sales geography

International stores often sell certain products in different countries. But the IKEA range is so popular all over the world that 85% of the company's products are sold in any store in any country.

9. What is IKEA

The company name IKEA is an acronym. It is a combination of the initials of its founder Ingvar Kamprad (IK), the first letter of the name of the farm where he grew up - Elmtaryd (E) and the first letter of his hometown Agunnaryd (A).

10. The largest IKEA store

The largest IKEA store in the world is located in Stockholm. Its area is more than 55,000 square meters. The next four largest stores are in China.

11. Features of Chinese IKEA

Visitors to IKEA in China may be surprised to see people sleeping in the store. Chinese buyers can literally test the products by dozing on mattresses and chairs. Local employees do not wake them up until they need to sell what visitors are peacefully sleeping on.

12. IKEA virtual reality

The IKEA virtual reality program is available on the gaming platform Steam. People can download it and check out the new IKEA kitchen from the comfort of their couch.

13. IKEA also serves food.

Although the company's main business is furniture, IKEA earned $2 billion in food sales in 2012. The reason why IKEA sells food is not trivial. Kamprad once saw people visiting a store and leaving without buying anything because they were hungry.

14. Death by certificate

Sometimes when it opens new store IKEA, giving first-time customers $150 worth of shopping vouchers, led to the death of three people in a stampede at the opening of a store in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

15. Mind-blowing circulations

The IKEA catalog is printed every year in a circulation twice as large as the Bible. Approximately 212 million copies are published in 29 different languages. The IKEA catalog spends 70% of the company's marketing budget.

Especially for those who decided to do transformation own interior we collected .

Slogan: Home is the most important place in the world
Make a house a home
Improving everyday life for the majority
Affordable solutions for better living
Not for the rich but for the wise

A company that owns the largest retail chain selling furniture and various household goods. Products IKEA especially popular in Europe. It is believed that in countries Western Europe there is not a single house, not a single apartment where you cannot find something bought in IKEA. And although it is believed that the furniture of this brand is not of very high quality, affordability determines its popularity.

The company was founded in 1943 when young entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad founded the company IKEA, which sold writing instruments. He was 17 years old then. The name of the company is an abbreviation, which stands for the following: the initials of the creator ( I ngvar K amprad), to which Ingvar added the name of the farm on which he grew up ( E lmtaryd), located in the parish A gunnaryd (Agunnaryd), which is in southern Sweden. That is IKEA- This Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

To say that Ingvar was a talented businessman is to say nothing. It is no coincidence that he eventually became one of the richest people in the world with a multi-billion dollar fortune. With a lot of effort, he managed to promote his business. Nevertheless, the Second World War had little impact on Sweden, which was essentially an ally of both the Third Reich and its opponents. Military operations took place somewhere to the side, without interfering everyday life ordinary Swedes.

The range that the company sold was constantly expanding. Mainly due to all sorts of little things, like stationery, underwear and household chemicals. The idea to start making furniture came in 1948. And this furniture had to be inexpensive so that the average person with low income could afford it. Having thought about all this, Ingvar agreed with several small manufacturers who began to produce furniture to his order. Success came quickly; already in 1951, the businessman acquired a small factory, where he began to produce furniture on his own. At the same time, he began printing his first product catalogue.

And here we had to face the first problems. Furniture in those years was not luxury, but very expensive goods. With his actions, Ingvar greatly interfered with other Swedish manufacturers. As a result, they managed to persuade logging companies to stop cooperating with IKEA. Anyone else would have given up. But not Ingvar! Having considered the current situation, he began to purchase the necessary components in Poland, while also benefiting in price. It was then that the idea was born to simplify the assembly and delivery of furniture as much as possible by making it prefabricated, like a kind of construction set. And although this required some effort on the part of consumers, they were satisfied, since it became much easier to deliver the purchase home, and its price dropped even more.

By the end of the 50s, IKEA stores began to appear throughout the country, where you could not only buy furniture and other goods, but also have a cup of coffee. And the prices were simply pleasing to the eyes. Every store was different large sizes and were located outside the city - Ingvar “spotted” this system from an American retail chain Cash & Carry.

By the early 60s, Ingvar realized that his company was ripe to enter the world market. The conquest began first of the neighboring Scandinavian countries, and then of all of Europe.

To date IKEA is one of the largest retail corporations. Its retail outlets are located in dozens of countries around the world. Hundreds of thousands of people work for it. Product catalogs are published in hundreds of millions of copies in various languages. The prices printed in them traditionally do not change throughout the year, regardless of any circumstances. Many shops IKEA operate under a franchise system.

Ingvar himself is no longer the owner of the empire he created, which has belonged to the Netherlands since 1982. INGKA Holding B.V., which is the parent company of a charitable (according to the poisonous statement of some journalists and analysts, a pseudo-charitable) foundation Stichting Ingka Foundation. It is believed that the reason he took this step is that Swedish taxes are too high. The company's head office is located in the Dutch province of South Holland (Zuid Holland) in Delft, a town located near Rotterdam. But in general, the structure of the holding is incredibly complex and confusing, it includes dozens of companies of different types from different founders. There is an opinion that such difficulties are deliberately created in order to minimize taxes.

Interesting fact:

Ingvar Kamprad went down in history not only as a businessman and billionaire, but also as a terrible curmudgeon who always dresses at sales, buys everything as cheaply as possible, and tries, whenever possible, to walk or ride a bicycle. He uses taxis only as a last resort and, they say, never leaves tips anywhere.

The Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is one of the most popular companies in the world. They made quality furniture accessible to the entire population. Today the company sells more than $28 billion worth of products, and it all started with a small store opened by a young guy who had just graduated from high school. How did IKEA become one of the best in the world and open more than 300 stores in different countries?

IKEA opening and expansion

Good furniture has always been very expensive. If we're talking about about high-quality wooden furniture, then it must be purchased from professionals who manufacture it. Otherwise, you had to do it yourself.

Now products have emerged from cheaper materials, wood substitutes, which have a mass useful properties and essentially differ only in cost from real wood. But even then, buying furniture for your home is an expensive proposition. That is why IKEA, which produces high-quality products at a much lower cost than usual on the market, is one of the most popular in its field.

Creation of IKEA

IKEA was founded by a young Swedish entrepreneur, Ingvar Kamprad. He started selling at the age of 5, when he bought matches in a store and sold them to neighbors at a higher price. Over time, he began to expand his range, after which he opened a small store in his parents’ house. A few years later, he began to more actively study the market, after which he came up with a system for sending goods by mail. Ingvar took the products to the railway station, from where he sent them to the users' addresses.

After graduating from school, Kamprad decided to open a full-fledged store in which he could sell his goods. His father, who had already seen his son’s success in business, singled out a large sum on this. At the same time, the IKEA brand appeared, although it sold a variety of goods, not furniture. The name of the company is associated with the name of the young businessman Ingvar Kamprad, as well as the area in which he grew up, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd.

First difficulties

More than 5 years have passed since the opening of the first store in 1943, and IKEA has already become a brand and trademark. Ingvar Kamprad has already begun to develop furniture design, as well as sell them. And at the same time, IKEA offered one of the lowest prices for home equipment.

The benefit for the business was that World War II did not take place in Sweden, so he could continue to work and develop his company. But everything could not be so good, because Ingvar’s successes did not suit local competitors in furniture production. At that time, home furniture was practically a luxury, so ordinary people couldn't afford it. Accordingly, the low cost of goods in the IKEA store began to attract customers, which negatively affected the income of competitors. At first it seemed almost unnoticeable, but after expanding its business, IKEA began to have problems.

In 1955, large enterprises that supplied wood and furniture fittings refused to cooperate with IKEA. The entrepreneur had to look for other suppliers. The best option was companies from Poland, they offered affordable prices and high quality tree. But the difficulty lay in the furniture assembly system itself: first it was necessary to transport the materials to Sweden, then assemble them at the IKEA factory, and then either sell them in the store (and buyers had to take them home themselves), or transport them to users. All this required expenses, so markups were added to the basic price of furniture, which is why the cost of goods was almost equal to competitors’ products.

IKEA's innovative idea

It was then that Ingvar Kamprad had a “million dollar idea” - not to bring materials to the factory, but to order ready-made molds from the manufacturer for different furniture and deliver them to the buyer, after which the client himself could assemble the furniture at home. Sale of finished components and detailed instructions assembly became exactly what distinguished IKEA from other companies and made the company one of the best furniture retailers in the world.

Thanks to new system sales in 1960, IKEA began to reach international market. Almost instantly the company gained popularity on all continents, and a few years later IKEA had already become a company with multimillion-dollar profits, and made its leader Ingvar Kamprad a billionaire.

IKEA - to be the first and the best

IKEA stores were built outside the city because they were huge. After the 1970s they began to appear in almost all large countries. The peculiarity of IKEA stores was that they offered not only goods low prices, but also professional service, assistance to any buyer and even coffee for those who are planning for a long time select products in the store.

IKEA is a large corporation that retails furniture and other goods. They publish catalogs and have their own online stores where you can buy any products for your home. The company employs hundreds of thousands of people.

• The company has been recognized several times as one of best places for work, because it employs people with difficult life situations, and also has good conditions.
• IKEA owner Ingvar Kamprad's fortune amounts to more than 30 billion.
• Ingvar himself, despite his condition, continues to dress at sales, buys cheap goods and does not leave tips.
• Because of their scale, IKEA stores are designed to ensure that the customer can see all the products. The layout there is not the same as in a regular store, but a kind of labyrinth, which the employees themselves call “The Natural Path”.
• Almost all products, even individual models, have their own name, and not a digital article, as in other stores. This is due to the fact that Invar has dyslexia and cannot remember numbers.
• According to statistics, due to the low price and cheapness of all goods, people buy various little things more than they planned. They can come for one product and buy up to 10 different products. This sales method is called “Bula-Bula”.
• Unlike most furniture stores, IKEA allows you to test products - the client can lie on a sofa or bed, and even sleep on it.
• Store employees do not have the right to impose themselves and try to sell a person more goods.
• Marriage psychologists advise couples to go to IKEA and try to buy different products. This is due to the fact that lovers often quarrel there and cannot choose the best product. Such incidents happen so often there that the behavior of employees in such cases is described in the basic instructions that they must learn.
• The employees themselves are given a huge number of benefits, and at Christmas they are given original gifts. Most often these are random air tickets to anywhere in the world.

Today the IKEA brand sells a huge number of products that have good quality and low cost. The success story of this company is an example for any entrepreneur - how to fight for your business, look for solutions to problems and not be afraid to introduce non-standard ideas.

The site's observer studied the history of the Swedish company, which made furniture accessible to the widest segments of the population.

Furniture is an important part of creating home comfort, and it may seem strange that at the beginning of the 20th century, even in developed countries many could not afford to buy it. Good furniture was quite expensive, and it could be purchased mainly by wealthy people, while the rest were content with what they had or made it with their own hands.

Such circumstances faced the young Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad, who became interested in the furniture business back in 1948. Most likely, he could not even imagine that this idea would eventually allow him to create a worldwide famous brand with a turnover of more than $30 billion.

Ingvar Kamprad was born in 1926 and spent his childhood on his parents' farm. Already in early childhood the boy was famous for his entrepreneurial abilities. At the age of five, Ingvar began selling matches to his neighbors, having learned that they could be purchased much cheaper in Stockholm. The boy's aunt helped him buy the first batch of goods. Ingvar would later say that the moment when he sold his first batch of matches became his best childhood memory.

It will soon become clear that this was just a small warm-up before his further endeavors. Kamprad's biographers say that the ability to trade was passed on to him from relatives on his father's side. Ingvar's grandfather had his own small business - however, in the end he almost went bankrupt and committed suicide. The family business had to be restored by his grandmother, who significantly influenced Ingvar’s development and even taught him several business lessons.

The unusually enterprising boy grew up, and his goals became increasingly different from the interests of his peers. IN school years Kamprad spent most of his time looking for new ways to earn money and did not spend the money he received on toys and sweets at all - instead, he saved it. When the boy’s relatives asked him why he needed so much money, he answered: “To expand the business.” As a child, Ingvar tried himself in various fields, from selling matches to fishing.

By the age of 17, Kamprad had saved up a good amount of money, after which he borrowed money from his father and opened his own company. IKEA is an acronym made up of the first letters of the entrepreneur's first and last name and the names of the farm and village where he grew up. It was 1943, war was raging all over the world, which, fortunately, hardly affected Sweden. First, Ingvar established trade in basic necessities. The first model of work was mailing list goods. The young entrepreneur was forced to combine work and study at the Getterberg commercial school, where, as he himself says, he learned a lot.

Writing materials began to be in particular demand at that time. To increase profits, the young man takes a risky step: he takes out 500 crowns on credit and orders ballpoint pens from France for them.

When the goods finally arrived, the entrepreneur realized that he needed to sell them quickly in order to pay off his debt. The task was not easy, but Kamprad still found a way to attract buyers to his presentation. He gave a note to the newspaper in which he promised to treat every visitor to a cup of coffee and a bun. Inspired by the proposal, people literally broke into his presentation. More than a thousand guests gathered, and it was a disaster. The young entrepreneur understood that he had to treat everyone, otherwise his name would suffer. With great difficulty and considerable expense, he still managed to do it.

The presentation of the pens was a great success, and the product was sold out very quickly. Ingvar first paid off the loan and never took it out again. He began to think about the importance of advertising in attracting customers - in the future it would become one of the main factors in turning his company into an empire. Another consequence of this promotion was the mandatory presence of a restaurant in every IKEA brand store.

In 1945, after graduating from commercial school, the young entrepreneur was sent to work as a clerk at the Forest Owners Association. Ingvar did not waste time here either: he obtained from one of the managers the right to sell saws. The business model did not change; the young man was forced to independently deliver goods for sale. Invaluable assistance was provided to him by his relatives, who supported all of Ingvar’s endeavors.

A year later, Kamprad was drafted into the army. An active and very efficient young man quickly won the trust of the unit commander and received permission to take night leave more often. This allowed him to rent a small office and continue to run his own business.

In 1948, Kamprad began to think about expanding his business. It dawned on him: furniture is what everyone uses one way or another. The problem is that it was quite expensive then, and in order to make money, it was necessary to make this product publicly available. According to Ingvar himself, the last argument in favor of working in this direction was that his competitors were also trying to do this. In the same year, IKEA expanded: the head of the company, who is also the only employee, despairing of working in so many directions on his own, finally hired the first employee. By 1950, the company already employed four people.

Kamprad spent all his time trying to find cheap furniture - at first it was a variety of small productions that could not command a high price. Its competitors also tried to reduce costs, but could not offer the same prices as IKEA. Over time, Ingvar's approach changed, and instead of reselling furniture, he began to buy individual parts and assemble them in his own small factory, which further reduced prices. Then Kamprad's famous formula appeared - it is better to sell 600 chairs inexpensively than 60 for a lot of money.

Soon a wave of discontent arose, signaling the beginning of serious competition. First, the company's products were no longer allowed at furniture fairs, where all new products were usually presented. Kamprad had to sneak into these events by cunning, hiding in the back seat of a car. The fight against IKEA reached the point of absurdity: once Ingvar was fined for selling products at an exhibition that took place in his own building.

Kamprad was not going to give up, and his competitors realized that he could not be stopped by such methods. They took the last possible step, threatening the suppliers to boycott the young entrepreneur. But that didn't help either. This was due to Kamprad's original entrepreneurial approach, as well as the unusual popularity of the company's products in Sweden.

Such fame became possible thanks to the innovations that Ingvar introduced into business. The first of them was the advertising booklet “News from IKEA,” aimed at people with low incomes, a prototype of modern catalogs that was supposed to attract customers. For the first few years, the booklet advertised not furniture at all, but familiar pens for writing.

In addition, the cheapness of the products sold and Ingvar’s ability to negotiate with suppliers helped out - some of them collaborated with the young entrepreneur, despite all the prohibitions.