Happy 30th Birthday: 7 things you didn’t know about Ikea

Ikea, the Swedish brand known for flat-pack, do-it-yourself home furnishings, is celebrating its 30th year as a U.S. retailer this week.

Since opening the doors of its first retail location in Plymouth Meeting, Pa. on June 12, 1985, Ikea has grown to 40 stores nationwide and is a fixture in Furniture/Today’s annual Top 100 Retailers list. Currently, Ikea is ranked No. 2 among the top home furnishings stores in the country.

“Back in 1985 when Ikea U.S. opened its first store in Plymouth, Pa., few people in the U.S. knew how to pronounce Ikea, how to assemble flat pack furniture, or what a Lack table was,” said Lars Petersson, Ikea US president. “Now we are pleased to say that during these past 30 years Ikea has experienced steady growth due to the tremendous contribution of our co-workers and the great interest of Americans in our home furnishings, and our unique Ikea shopping experience. And we see this as just the beginning. We want to be accessible to more Americans in the future by opening new stores, improving existing stores, developing our service offer, and growing our e-commerce business.”

Here are a few more things you may not have known about Ikea – no assembly required.

o In fiscal year 2014, Ikea Group had 716 million visitors to its stores and 1.5 billion visitors to Ikea.com.

o Ikea U.S. represents 12% of Ikea’s worldwide business today.

o As of May, Ikea has installed more than 700,000 solar panels on buildings across the world and owns approximately 157 wind turbines in Europe and Canada, with 104 others being built in the U.S.

o Ikea was the first major retailer to stop using plastic bags by 2008.

o Ikea was the first major retailer to announce it will sell only LED lights by fall 2016.

o Ikea’s 2014 operations supported 36,135 jobs, including 15,034 direct jobs (employment at Ikea), 10,302 indirect jobs (supply chain) and 10,799 induced jobs (consumers).

o Today, four Ikea items cost less than they did when the first store opened in 1985. They include the Billy bookcase ($82 in 1985; $60 today), the Poang chair ($148; $69), the Lack side table ($25, $10) and the Klippan sofa ($395; $299).

Source: Home Accents Today