Learning about the Company behind the IKEA
Catalog
In the world of great furniture, it doesn’t get
much better than IKEA. Whether you’re looking for leather sofas,
bedroom sets for your children, or great dining room amenities, you
can that and so much more from their grand selection of items. In
the “old” days it was customary to receive great furniture (as well
as department, jewelry and sometimes even toy store) catalogs at
your home – often as a complimentary and unexpected surprise – to be
able to browse for hours through hundreds of pages of items you
would love to own. The love of catalogs has not changed much in
present day. However, with the offspring of online catalogs, many
enjoy a new virtual reality of browsing that can result in the
instant shopping gratification of online purchases. IKEA understands
the need to appease the online and offline browsers, having provided
the option to browse their traditional paper IKEA catalog, or their
more advanced online Flash Catalog.
About the Company
For those who are unaware of who IKEA is, let’s
take this opportunity to get you up to speed. This company is not
just the owner of a chain of stores that sell furniture – this
company is an enterprise. It first got its start in the 1940s by a
humble man named Ingvar Kamprad who grew up on a farm named Elmtaryd.
Since the farm he lived on was in a village name Agunnaryd in
Sweden, he used the initials of his first and last name along with
the farm and village first initials to create what we know to be
I.K.E.A.
Initially, he sold watches, table runners,
jewelry, pictures frames and other smaller items, but as his company
grew, so did his retailing prowess, which resulted in him learning
to manufacturer and sell furniture. Over time, his company evolved
taking him out of Sweden and around the world. Now his over 250 home
and office furnishings retail stores can be found in 35 countries,
and he is still looking to expand (in 2008 the company hopes to open
10 new stores worldwide, and over the next decade they plan to open
20 new stores in the United Kingdom alone).
The reason for the company’s popularity in so
many countries is the unique styling and distinct quality of the
furniture. The company has developed a very contemporary and
utilitarian design for their furniture that results in very sleek
and trendy looks at inexpensive prices. They ways they are able to
avoid high costs are by finding manufacturers who use decent
quality, yet inexpensive, materials to create the furniture. They
also ship items in a flat-packed form to allow customers to assemble
themselves – this reduces cost in shipping as well as labor. So if
you’re confident that you can assemble the pieces on your own then
you will have furniture as beautiful as what you will find in their
IKEA Catalog.
The company has begun to expand its retail
power by opening more stores that have more than just furniture to
sell. They understand that convenience for customers is key, so in
their new stores, like IKEA Orlando, they provide a variety of new
services, including vans for renting purposes to those customers
whose cars are too small to carry the load they purchased, a play
area call Småland, which is supervised, and allows children to play
while their parents shop, a free furniture consultant who can advise
customers about the best options for both their homes and offices,
and two dining areas – a restaurant and bistro – with inexpensive
food for customers to enjoy while shopping.
The online version of the company is just as
powerful, offering great prices to its Internet customers with the
added bonus of two options for delivery. Customers can either have
the items shipped directly to their home, or they can have items
flat-pack shipped to an area affiliate warehouse where they can then
pick them up on their own for a discounted shipping rate. Great
options always bring customers back, and this company understands
this – very smart.
Also, on their website, they have a handy
little inventory counter that lets you know if the item is available
online. If they are out of stock, they have you find the store
nearest you and check their inventory with a click of the mouse.
This provides a major convenience to customers for they no longer
have to call around to a number of stores only wait on hold while a
person manually checks inventory. The Internet age has
revolutionized convenience and IKEA refused to be left behind.
The IKEA Catalog
According to their website, the IKEA Catalog is
their most important marketing channel. There are two ways for
customers to enjoy the IKEA Catalog. One is by ordering their more
traditional print version that is distributed each year (ex. 2007
IKEA Catalog). To order a copy of the current year’s catalog, you
can simply call their offices, or type IKEA Catalog into any
Internet search engine and you will be directed to their ordering
page – there you can request your free copy by entering your email
address and signing up for a free account. With your free account
you will also receive “exclusive emails about upcoming sales and
specials,” “invitations to in-store events,” and “advance notice of
new IKEA catalogs.”
In the online IKEA Catalog, you are given the
option of viewing the same paper catalog in a digital format. This
can be dangerous to those who know they have a “happy shopper
finger.” With the catalog being located on the same website as their
online shopping experience, some might find themselves browsing and
buying at the same time. For those who do have the discipline,
however, browsing the catalog is a neat experience; you simply click
on little page icons at the bottom of the screen to flip to a new
page. When you find a page you like, you place your mouse over the
page to zoom in for a closer look. Even those with dial-up services
can experience the online catalog with no problems – this is
definitely convenience at its greatest.
Learning more about the company and their IKEA
Catalog serves those interested in the variety of ways the company
can accommodate them. With accommodations come loyalty, something
the company understands. And with loyalty comes more customers. So
by providing something as simple as the online IKEA Catalog, in
addition to the free print version, the company is giving customers
convenience – and guaranteeing even more business in the future.
IKEA Information
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