47 Fun Facts About IKEA

IKEA's self-service warehouse was born in 1971 when its Stockholm flagship reopened after which disaster?

A fire. A fault in one of the store's own illuminated signs started the 1970 blaze, and the rebuilt shop let customers into the warehouse to fetch their own flat-packs.

The E in IKEA stands for Elmtaryd, which was what to founder Ingvar Kamprad?

His family's farm. Kamprad grew up at Elmtaryd and ran the newly registered IKEA from it, sending out orders with the morning milk collection; the A is Agunnaryd, the nearby village.

IKEA's founder started the firm at 17 with a cash reward from his father for what?

Doing well at school. Kamprad put the money into a mail-order firm selling pens and wallets, and furniture only joined the range five years later.

As a boy, what did Ingvar Kamprad first buy in bulk from Stockholm to resell to his neighbours?

Matches. He started at about five, selling them singly at a profit, and was soon cycling round the district with fish and seeds as well.

In which small Swedish town did the first IKEA store open in 1958?

Älmhult. When the store moved across town in 2012, the original building was restored to its 1958 look and reopened as the IKEA Museum.

IKEA's flat-pack idea is said to date from a designer taking the legs off what to fit it in a car?

A table. Gillis Lundgren, IKEA's fourth employee, is credited with the brainwave in the 1950s, though the company's own history says it was already selling self-assembly tables in 1953.

IKEA's 1965 Stockholm flagship is often said to be modelled on which New York museum?

The Guggenheim Museum. Architect Claes Knutson visited it before drawing the round store, though IKEA's own history says a circular Dutch builders' merchant that Kamprad admired may have played a part too.

Which was the first country outside its homeland to get an IKEA store, in 1963?

Norway. The shop opened at Nesbru outside Oslo, and IKEA then waited six years before trying a second foreign market.

IKEA opened its first US store in 1985 in Plymouth Meeting, a suburb of which Pennsylvania city?

Philadelphia. America proved hard to crack: IKEA was still struggling there in the 1990s and only won shoppers over after adapting its range to local tastes.

Which toy company teamed up with IKEA in 2020 on BYGGLEK, a range of storage boxes made for play?

Lego. The white boxes have studs on their lids so bricks can be built straight onto them, and the name is Swedish for "build and play".

IKEA's largest store in the world when it opened in 2021 is part of the Mall of Asia complex in which city?

Pasay, Philippines. It was also the country's first IKEA, and under Covid rules entry was by online booking only, with the slots full for days after it opened.

IKEA opened its first store in India in which city, famed for its biryani?

Hyderabad. Out of respect for local beliefs, the 1,000-seat restaurant dropped IKEA's beef-and-pork meatballs and served chicken ones alongside samosas.

In March 2022 IKEA announced it was closing all 17 of its stores in which country?

Russia. IKEA shut the shops after the invasion of Ukraine and later put its Russian factories up for sale, while its 14 Mega shopping malls there stayed open.

Which audio company made the speakers hidden inside IKEA's SYMFONISK lamps and bookshelves?

Sonos. One of the lamp's designers said it partly sprang from the idea of a fireplace, a single piece giving out both warm light and sound.

What does IKEA call its creed of good design at low prices?

Democratic design. The slogan even reached the art world: in 2009 Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne made it the title of an exhibition devoted to IKEA furniture.

IKEA's rugs and carpets are named after places in which country?

Denmark. IKEA's borrowed place names travel so far that in 2021 Sweden's tourist board ran a campaign, "Discover the Originals", to win some of its own back.

Which part of IKEA's range is named after lakes and rivers, such as Lake Bolmen?

Bathroom products. Bolmen is a real Swedish lake, popular for swimming and kayaking, though in 2021 Sweden's tourist board ran a campaign insisting it is more than an IKEA toilet brush.

Why did Ingvar Kamprad prefer real words to product codes for naming furniture?

He was dyslexic. Names stuck in his memory where strings of digits did not, so IKEA built a system in which every family of products draws on its own list of words.

The Billy bookcase is said to be named after whom?

An IKEA advertising manager. Billy Liljedahl had kept complaining that the range lacked a proper bookcase just for books, though IKEA's own history says only that it was "perhaps" named after him.

By IKEA's 2020 estimate, roughly how often was a Billy bookcase sold somewhere in the world?

Every five seconds. Billy is so widespread that Bloomberg built a Billy Bookcase Index on it, comparing its price from country to country to gauge purchasing power.

In 2012, which animal went viral after wandering a Toronto IKEA car park in a shearling coat?

A monkey. Darwin, a young pet, had let himself out of a crate in his owner's car, and a judge later ruled that he was a wild animal who should stay at a sanctuary.

IKEA's Poäng armchair echoes a 1939 bentwood design by which Finnish architect?

Alvar Aalto. Poäng's designer borrowed the springy frame of Aalto's and Bruno Mathsson's classics, then cut the price by sourcing the wood, cushions and seat from different factories.

Which IKEA two-seat sofa has come back every year since about 1980 in new removable covers?

Klippan. A product developer whose children had wrecked an expensive Italian sofa wanted one with soft corners and covers that could come off for the wash.

What does IKEA call the supervised children's play area in its stores?

Småland. The name is a pun: små is Swedish for small, and Småland is also the forested province where founder Ingvar Kamprad grew up and IKEA began.

By IKEA's own account, which play-area attraction did two of its designers build into its rebuilt Stockholm store in 1971?

A ball pit. IKEA's history says the designers got the idea from small plastic balls used as packing material and swapped in bigger ones that a child could not choke on.

IKEA's plant-based meatballs are made from pea protein, oats, potatoes and which fruit?

Apples. IKEA sells more than a billion meatballs a year, so it made the plant-based version look and taste like meat in the hope that meat lovers would switch and shrink its climate footprint.

Which fashion designer created IKEA's 2019 MARKERAD collection, including a rug printed "KEEP OFF"?

Virgil Abloh. The founder of the streetwear label Off-White also remade IKEA's blue shopping bag with the word "SCULPTURE" on it, arguing that everyday objects can become art.

Designer Gillis Lundgren is said to have first sketched IKEA's Billy bookcase on the back of what?

A napkin. The story has Lundgren fearing he would forget the idea, though IKEA's own history says it came from an engineer who had toured the factories making its shelves.

At its peak, IKEA's printed catalogue was said to have a bigger circulation than which book?

The Bible. The catalogue ran to about 200 million copies a year at its height, but IKEA scrapped it after the 2021 edition because shoppers had moved online.

IKEA upset typography fans in 2009 by switching its catalogue from Futura to which screen-friendly font?

Verdana. IKEA wanted one typeface for print and web, but designers were so appalled at seeing a screen font in print that the row was dubbed "Verdanagate".

IKEA's stated vision is "to create a better everyday life for" whom?

The many people. Ingvar Kamprad set the phrase down in 1976 in The Testament of a Furniture Dealer, nine points written so the company's culture would outlast his daily involvement.

In 2017 which luxury fashion house sold a $2,145 tote that looked just like IKEA's blue Frakta bag?

Balenciaga. IKEA said it was "deeply flattered" and ran tongue-in-cheek adverts showing shoppers how to tell its 99-cent original from the designer version.

The "IKEA effect", named in a 2011 study, describes what?

Valuing things more when you built them yourself. In the study, people who assembled a plain IKEA storage box bid 63 per cent more for it than people shown the same box ready-made.

Michael Norton, who led the 2011 study that named the IKEA effect, was then at which business school?

Harvard. Norton's other research found that money can buy happiness after all, provided you spend it on someone else.

The Economist in 2006 called the Dutch foundation controlling most IKEA stores the world's wealthiest what?

Charity. The magazine added that the foundation was also one of the world's least generous, and that the set-up kept taxes low and made IKEA immune to a takeover.

IKEA's Stockholm flagship stands at Kungens Kurva, named after a mishap in which the king's car did what?

Ended up in a ditch. King Gustav V's chauffeur lost control on a bend in 1946, the spot became popularly known as the King's Curve, and the name was later made official.

Which ageing car was billionaire Ingvar Kamprad still driving in 2006, a symbol of his thrift?

A 1993 Volvo 240. He also flew economy class and bought his clothes at flea markets, and he wrote that IKEA needed no flashy cars, impressive titles or other status symbols.

What did Ingvar Kamprad call "the greatest mistake of my life"?

His teenage involvement with a pro-fascist movement. When the press exposed it in 1994, he confessed in a handwritten message to all his staff headed "Could not stop the tears".

When Swedish suppliers boycotted IKEA around 1961, where did it move much of its manufacturing?

Poland. Kamprad wrote to a visiting Polish trade minister, was invited to Warsaw in 1961, and found that chairs could be made there far more cheaply than at home.

IKEA's smart-home push began in 2016 with which product line?

TRÅDFRI lighting. A 2017 software update let the bulbs work with Philips Hue systems, and IKEA went on to add blinds, speakers and air purifiers to its smart-home range.

Which odd-jobs marketplace did IKEA buy in 2017 to help customers get furniture assembled?

TaskRabbit. The deal let shoppers who dread the instructions hire a stranger to build their sofa or bookcase, and the site carried on running as an independent company.

BoKlok, a venture IKEA launched with Skanska in the 1990s, sells flat-pack what?

Houses. The aim was to cut the price of a first home, and BoKlok estates went up across the Nordic countries before the idea was exported to Britain.

In which country did IKEA open its first store outside Scandinavia, in 1973?

Switzerland. West Germany followed a year later, and the rush of openings brought growing pains that forced a company-wide overhaul in 1979.

The Interogo Foundation, long the ultimate owner of the IKEA brand, is based in which country?

Liechtenstein. When Kamprad's lawyers showed that the foundation, not he, owned IKEA, Forbes sharply cut its estimate of his fortune in 2011.

IKEA opened Hubhult, a meeting and digital hub, in 2015 in which city in Sweden's far south?

Malmö. IKEA wanted a base easier to reach from abroad than its small-town headquarters, and the building earned Sweden's first top "Outstanding" rating for sustainability.

IKEA began buying forest in bulk in 2015 and soon became the largest private landowner in which European country?

Romania. IKEA gets a sizeable share of its wood there, and investigations have since accused some of its suppliers of illegally logging old-growth forest.

In 2020 IKEA answered the November shopping frenzy with which trade-in campaign for old furniture?

Buy Back Friday. Customers in 27 countries could bring in used pieces, fully assembled, for vouchers worth up to half the original price, and IKEA resold or recycled them.