Ikea: Furniture Retailer to the world 1. IKEA’s quality of products was as good as if not better than the traditional Swedish retailers, and the price was much lower. So the publicity made IKEA acceptable in middle class household. Secondarily, IKEA opened up a store that everyone can come and see their product, and they can leave with flat-packed furniture loaded on top of their cars by having a car roof racks they got from IKEA, and they even had a restaurant in their shop, so that customers could shop and relax and refresh themselves while shopping. 2. By 1973 IKEA was the largest furniture retailer in Scandinavia with nine stores. The main reason that Ikea expanded rapidly and was so successful in Europe, compare the other furniture business in the Western Europe with IKEA, the furniture markets were largely fragmented and served by high-cost retailer located in expensive downtown stores and selling relatively expensive furniture, while IKEA had elegant functional designs with clean lines, and lower price, and immediate availability as was the self-service store format. So Ikea was having a better price, a better design, a better quality and a better availability to a customer, why not buy from it? IKEA mainly used their price and stocking advantages in their operations, which was really competitive to those furniture shops that sell furniture in downtown area and with an expensive rent. The other domestic furniture seller also didn’t have much space to store their inventories because the rent is so expensive, so the customers would have to do orders and wait even if they were willing to pay a higher price, which gives IKEA a significant difference so that it can be outstanding among all the furniture sellers.
The problems that IKEA experienced in the U.S. was that the European-style offering didn’t always resonate with American consumers, the beds were