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"a better everyday life for the many people..."
-"Our Vision," IKEA website
Helping the world one BANG cup* at a time.
IKEA is more than a furniture store; it has a social
mission. IKEA provides a lifestyle to to "the many" that is
cheap, stylish, and expendable. Taking Swedish modernism out
of the Nordic country and around the globe, the IKEA
shopping experience wishes to improve everyone's everyday
lives through design.
This message is not easily distinguishable when
approaching any of IKEA's 15 American locations. Large,
hulking, and surrounded by parking, it's appearance is not
much different from the outside as the standard Wal-Mart.
This is in stark contrast to its interior, reinforcing the
company ethos of improving our domestic spheres. Certainly
the store has a drab exterior, but inside the wonders of
modern furniture quickly make the customer forget he or she
is in a cleverly decorated warehouse. The message seems to
be that even your trailer home can look this good
inside.
At the entrance, IKEA wishes to remind you that shopping is
fun, and appropriately equips you with everything necessary
for the journey: pencils, notepads, tape measures, store
guides, catalogs, shopping bags, strollers and carts. The
kids acting up? IKEA is nice enough to provide a dumping
ground for the little people who may inhibit your shopping
experience.
The IKEA experience tries to take the capitalism out of
shopping. They appear on all levels as a benevolent force in
customers' lives. The relationship between the company and
the customer is described as a partnership based on mutual
beneficence for all. Indeed, IKEA even manages to put a
friendly take on big-box retail (the "marketplace" section
of the store is described as "many different specialty shops
gathered together" for the customers convenience; the
website declares "Because you shouldn't have to run from one
small specialty shop to another to furnish your home") and
globalization (from the website: "We buy in bulk - on a
global scale - so that we can get the best deals, and you
can get the lowest price").
IKEA is not only the customer's friend, but a friend to the
earth. The company is very good in presenting itself as an
eco-friendly business, going so far as to publish a
yearly
bulletin entitled "IKEA - Environmental and Social
Issues." In it, the president of the IKEA Group asks the
question "Can you do good business while being a good
business?" The answer he gives is an overwhelming yes.
Just as the business presents itself as progressive, the
store is an über-modern showroom. The store is
organized as an immense maze, steering the customer from
living rooms to bathrooms to kitchens. The assumption here
is that the customer has both the means and the desire to
change his entire life through design.
Balancing this radical presupposition is a competing desire
to project an image of nostalgic Swedish family life. The
provision of strollers and a child's play area supposes that
families will come; the furniture is designed to hark back
to the sunny and airy Scandinavian home designs (light
woods, lots of glass); the restaurant provides "Swedish
specialties" like meatballs and salmon. IKEA juxtaposes the
customers ideas of modernism as a cold and unfriendly style
with the familiar face of Sweden, the country of egalitarian
social ideals, blonde people, and Volvo.
The operation of the store is engineered to encourage
participation in the consumption of furniture by "the many,"
that is, those modest incomes, as well as other
demographics. IKEA provides transportation to the population
dependent on public transit by offering shuttle service
between Manhattan and its Elizabeth, NJ stores every half
hour. By supplying child services like strollers and a
supervised play area encourages adults with children to have
the "IKEA experience." The restaurant at IKEA allows it to
be a self-contained world where the weary can relax over a
big plate of meatballs. It maintenance as both a stylish and
eco-friendly store promotes consumption by young, liberal
urbanites who share similar values. This threefold approach
of appealing to those of lesser means through cheap prices
and shuttle services, families through child-oriented
activities, and informed urban professionals with a company
"vision" of social and ecological justice may be the reason
for IKEA's success and a clue as to why it is planning to
expand its North American presence by 50 more stores by
2013.
Those not encouraged to participate in the experience are
those with other notions of what furniture means. For those
who were wondering, IKEA is not competing with Ethan Allen
or Pottery Barn. At least not entirely. IKEA is helping
change the conception of what furniture is in our lives by
changing what we see as durable goods and soft goods
(John
Leland, "How the Disposable Sofa Conquered America," New
York Times, December 1, 2002). Historically, furniture
has been seen as durable good, comparable with kitchen
appliances like the refrigerator, that people feel should
last many years. By offering downmarket prices and upmarket
style, IKEA promotes the idea that furniture should
accommodate our lifestyles and not vice versa. Rather than
lug the couch, love seat, and whatever else from house to
house, instead of recycling Mom's old curtains and using
them as slipcovers, why not throw it out and redecorate?
IKEA offers liberation from the constricting truth that
furniture often limits our ability of self-expression
through home design. Cheap and expendable, IKEA reveals that
our couches, window treatments, and dish racks can be as
similarly changeable as fashion trends. This liberation
means "a better everyday life for everybody" while at the
same time increasing the stores' sales considerably.
The IKEA experience helps the customer neglect that what one
pays for may be more than its exchange value. When buying an
IKEA product one gets the sense of being progressive,
modern, and environmentally conscious. These feelings make
the poor quality of the furniture negligible. Selling
products for 80 percent of the quality for 60 percent of the
price (Leland) is not the miracle it appears to be. A
company "vision" coupled with thoughtful design are sign
values that increase the exchange value of IKEA
products.
The End.
*the BANG cup is a cheap, stackable mug that IKEA will sell
25 million of in the coming year
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