82 The EconomistFebruary 10th 2018
L
IGHT and bright, cheap and cheerful:
IKEA’s 400-plus outlets in 49 countries
all run on the same central principle. Cus-
tomers do as much of the workas possible,
in the belief they are having fun and saving
money. You drive to a distant warehouse,
built on cheap out-of-town land. Inside,
you enter a maze—no shortcuts allowed—
where every twist reveals new furniture, in
pale softwood or white chipboard, artfully
arranged with cheerfully coloured acces-
sories to exude a chic, relaxed Scandina-
vian lifestyle.
The low prices make other outlets seem
extortionate, so you load up your trolley
with impulse buys—a clock, a bin, storage
boxes, tools, lampshades and more tea
lights than you will ever use. You lug card-
board boxes holding flat-packed shelves,
cupboards and tables into your car and re-
ward yourself for yourthrift and good taste
with meatballs slathered with lingonberry
jam. Then you drive home and assemble
your prizes. You rejoice in the bargains.
IKEA rejoices in your money.
The company’s name was a do-it-your-
self job, too. It stands for Ingvar Kamprad,
from Elmtaryd—his family’s farm—in
Agunnaryd. That village is in the Smaland
region of southern Sweden, known for the
resourcefulness, stinginess and stubborn-
ness of its inhabitants. Mr Kamprad found-ed IKEA aged 17. Well before that, he spot-
ted a principle which would make him
one of the richest men in the world: that
customers like buying retail goods at
wholesale prices. First he bought matches
in bulk and sold them by the box. Aged ten,
he plied the same trade with pens and trin-
kets, delivered by bicycle.
Setbacks inspired him. Facing a price
war against his low-cost mail-order furni-
ture business, he flummoxed rivals by
opening a showroom. Dealers tried to
crush the upstart retailer, banning Mr Kam-
prad from their trade fairs. He sneaked in,
hiding in a friend’s car. When they tried to
intimidate his suppliers, he turned to in-
house design, and secretly outsourced pro-
duction to communist Poland. Decades lat-
er, east Europeans freed from the shoddy
scarcity of the planned economy drove
hundreds of miles to newly opened outlets
in Moscow and Warsaw.
His self-discipline was legendary. As a
child, he removed the “off” button from his
alarm clock to stop himself oversleeping.
He shunned first-class travel. The cham-
pagne didn’t get you there any earlier, he
sniffed; having lots of money was no rea-
son to waste it. He bought his clothes in flea
markets, and for years drove an elderly
Volvo until he had to sell it on safety
grounds. He had his hair cut in poor coun-tries to save money. Even his tax exile in
Switzerland was parsimonious. Visitors
admired the views, but were surprised that
his villa was so run-down. He worked well
into his eighties.
His austerity and diligence set a good
example to his 194,000 “co-workers”, (nev-
er “employees”). But he was no skinflint.
The point of cutting costs was to make
goods affordable, not to compromise qual-
ity. The real enemies were arrogance, cow-
ardice, distraction and above all waste. He
urged his staff to reflect constantly on ways
of saving money, time and space. A
tweaked design that allows easier stacking
means shipping less air—and more profit.
Culture trumped strategy. He despised
“exaggerated planning”, along with finan-
cial markets and banks. Better to make mis-
takes and learn from them. And use time
wisely: “You can do so much in ten min-
utes. But ten minutesonce gone are gone
for good.” This did notapply to customers.
The longer they tarried, the better.
Mr Kamprad’s impact on modern life ri-
valled that ofHenry Ford and the mass-
produced motor car. Furniture used to be
costly, clunky, dark and heavy. For the cash-
strapped and newly nesting, fitting out a
home could cost many months’ salary.
IKEA made domesticity not justaffordable
and functional, but fun. Out went the
hand-me-downs and junk-shop monstros-
ities. In came the cool, tasteful, egalitarian
look and feel of modern Sweden. Airy,
sparse, uncluttered—a little bland, perhaps,
but hard to dislike. The mission was civili-
sational, he felt, changing how people
lived and thought, and boosting democra-
cy more than anything politicians did.
His approach drew some fire. The inten-
sity of company values struck some as
creepy. AtIKEA’s Corporate Culture Cen-
tre, ubiquitous pictures of Mr Kamprad ac-
company his mottos about humility, will-
power and renewal. Some parts of the
supply chain seemed whiffy; so did the
empire’s extreme tax efficiency. The self-as-
sembly, aided only by an Allen key and di-
agrams, could be infuriating, but piecing
togetherIKEA’s accounts, this paper wrote
in 2006, was even more exasperating.Design flaw
His greatest mistake was a youthful but lin-
gering flirtation with fascism. Though his
best friend for years was a Jewish refugee,
Mr Kamprad never disavowed his ties with
Sweden’s leading far-right politician, Per
Engdahl, nor his Hitler-loving German
grandmother. Drip-fed excuses fuelled crit-
ics’ suspicion. In response, IKEA made a co-
lossal charitable donation. “Why did I not
reveal this past foolishness myself?” Mr
Kamprad explained. “Simple. I was afraid
it would hurt my business.” Frugality may
be admirable, but not when it comes to tell-
ing the truth. 7Self-made man
Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the IKEA furniture empire, died on January 27th, aged 91ObituaryIngvar Kamprad