Posted on 04/17/2012 4:11:19 AM PDT by WesternCulture
Edited on 04/17/2012 5:23:11 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I wish IKEA good luck. I don't know much about the market for home electronics in America, but If they manage to compete over here in Europe with the German chain of Media Markt, I'll readily admit Mr. Kamprad (founder and owner of IKEA) to be the greatest business genius on Earth.
The slogan of Media Markt is "Ich bin doch nicht blöd!" - I am not stupid! - and their unparallelled success throughout the European Continent and in China indicates that we PC Europeans and the brainwashed Chinese actually aren't that very stupid at all.
20 years ago, the average Swede could afford to buy 1 28" color TV for the amount of money he earned on a monthly basis after having paid his income tax.
Today, the average Swede earns around $3000 after having paid income tax and for that amount of money he could buy 10 flat screen 32" TVs at Media Markt and still have money over for doing some shopping at IKEA!
The article:
"Swedish electronics chains, already battling a sinking market, will be forced to compete on a whole new scale as Swedish furniture giant Ikea launches plans to enter the market with a new range of furniture with built-in electronics.
We have great expectations for this. I think we can step in and create a new market, a new way to use home electronics in the living room,” said Tolga Öncu, sales manager for Ikea Sweden, to news agency TT.
According to Ikea, the start will be a range of living room furniture called Uppleva -- a Swedish word which means 'Experience' in English -- designed to house a built-in TV and home cinema system.
“With this integrated audio-visual piece we can offer attractive, wireless and affordable solutions to our many customers. Uppleva is an innovative step into a new market for Ikea,” Öncu said in a statement.
However, according to Jonas Arnberg, a consultant at HUI Research, (formerly the Swedish Retail Institute), Ikea’s new venture was unexpected.
“It is a business where none of the main operators are doing particularly well. What everyone is waiting for is one to disappear and instead another enters the race,” he told TT.
Arnberg does not think that Ikea's foray into home electronics will do as well as the Swedish retailer's venture into the white goods market has done.
“If it is indeed possible that Ikea underestimates something, this might be it. This is an incredibly tough business, “said Arnberg to TT.
Ikea is set to start selling their furniture with built in electronics in five countries in June. The products will then be launched globally in 2013."
leading the race to the bottom.
This will lead to more divorces as husbands and wives blame each other while attempting to construct televisions from a cardboard box full of parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO7W2Tytfvk
Let us hope the quality is better than the quality of their furnitures.
Sounds like the rebirth of the console tv. That ship sailed a long time ago.
“Let us hope the quality is better than the quality of their furnitures.”
- IMO, some pieces of IKEA furniture are cr*p, but some are not.
Same thing with electronics.
99% of Ikea product is made-in-China garbage. People go and are fooled by the European look, but Ikea only sells European products in Europe.
I’ve just washed Stanford bridge, round two. :)
That’s nice but I don’t need a dvd player made out of wood.
Why am I thinking “Bang & Olufsen” right now?
More than 2,000 suppliers in over 50 countries manufacture our products. The profile of our well-designed and high quality range is distinctively Swedish/Scandinavian. The low price is literally built into the production and the flat packs facilitate a rational distribution, self-service and immediate take-away. All of our products are labelled "Design and Quality, IKEA of Sweden."
We buy A LOT of furniture and home accessories from IKEA. And we have for years as we lived full time in Gothenburg, Sweden for years and now are part timers. I don't think I have ever bought a product that was made in China. Vietnam yes. Korea yes. Honduras yes. Italy yes. India yes. You name it - but I don't ever remember China.
I had to go and check a bunch of furniture I just bought at IKEA. The Bestå Burs furniture I just got was all made in Italy.
Having lived in Sweden I can attest that there are NOT two product lines-one set made for European stores and another line for anywhere else. The KEY advantage of IKEA is its global manufacturing and distribution of flat packed goods.
I don't think you are giving IKEA a fair shake.
- Yes, in one way. Many large Scandinavian companies are very successful in America and the more of Mohamed cartoons we publish the more goods we'll sell to patriotic Americans.
But so far, we Scandinavian brutes haven't been especially successful in exporting our model of society to America.
There are a lot of Obama voters who think the US could become like Scandinavia by expanding the government and introducing Socialist health-care reforms, but without using the sane economic policies of the Nordic Countries. The only thing these Socialist experiments will result in is even higher unemployment and an even heftier deficit.
America is nowhere near becoming like Sweden.
The average Obama voter wouldn't last one day at the Volvo assembly line.
America does not need outdated Swedish Socialism from the past, just like we Swedes ourselves have done away with pretty much of it.
What America badly needs to copy from Sweden of today is our restoration of Lutheran work ethics, our willingness to support businesses and innovation, as well as our ability of creating financial stability through paying our nation's debts instead of increasing them.
A country that, contrary to America, successfully has copied Sweden lately is Germany. Merkel is a blessing to Germany and could well prove to be a blessing to all of Europe. There might even be hope for Greece (even though I'm not much of an optimist concerning that matter).
Viking economics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZeQiJIvejg
What “Swedish” economic policies lead to growth and which lead to stagnation?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENDE8ve35f0
Is Sweden a model for America?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDAQWJbEl9U
Enjoy!
My first thought, too. Loved B&O gear......
We used it successfully with our son's attendance at a distant university where he leased an unfurnished apartment.
We spent a few hundred bucks at IKEA purchasing boxes of things that we left behind and never brought back.
The "white goods" (sheets, bedding) products are serviceable ~ and great for a growing and aging family. Plus, they are inexpensive so if you stain things you just toss them.
You can put a douvet on anything if you need to stretch the life of your investment.
This latest turn ~ and I don't mean the one they announced, but the one now underway ~ has been focused on what to do in your recreation room now that your wide screen 4 inch thick TV has been delivered and you want to bolt it to the wall. Integrating that device with the shelves where you keep your DVD collections, and setting up the surround sound systems, projectors (for even wider screens), DVD players, video-game players, etc. is a logical development.
However, I think it's the wiring harness that's the long term investment here. The NEXT big advancement is going to be the application of Electronic Ink to the Big Screen.
They know it, we know it (at FR) and the marketeers know it. Think of simple rollup mylar screens you can apply to your walls like wallpaper. You'll need a control console that serves also as a serious headboard replete with knobs, whistles, and a remote server with 3-D heads-up display AND looks great with the purple and violet windmill theme douvet cover!
“I don’t think you are giving IKEA a fair shake.”
- My experience is that some people who fail to assemble IKEA furniture simply take it out on the company instead of admitting to be incapable of following a simple, straightforward instruction.
Greetings from another Gothenburg freeper!
I suggest you go to an IKEA, the one I have been to is in SE Mass. Virtually every non-food good in the store was made in China and I checked many labels throughout the store.
I have successfully assembled all IKEA furniture I have ever touched (for family members). There were no missing parts, but it was all pot metal (fasteners) and particle board. Knowing it came from China makes me suspicious of what they put in the particle board.
However, I've bought furniture from IKEA made in Turkey, Viet Nam, United States, Mexico, and so on.
Some items are quite commonly made in dozens of countries, and IKEA makes its profits on the large scale purchase contracts they sign with manufacturers to make things to the IKEA standard.
The ONLY IKEA products I've purchased that are regularly made in China for sale in the US are stainless steel cookware ~
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