IKEA

Following 40 years of success in Europe, IKEA launched a global strategy that would expand the company’s distinctive line of assemble-it-yourself furniture into new products and markets.

Why do you think this strategy did not work as well in North America as it did in Europe?
IKEA’s international product strategy, that extends the same products and the same message worldwide, was initially applied when the company expanded into the sophisticated high-income North American market. At first, IKEA followed its standard pattern. It identified principal markets with volume potential, acquired cheap land on the periphery of big cities, utilised mass marketing to advertise its unique message, that emphasised it’s ‘Swedishness’, focused on range and price and established a site from which to launch and develop the organisation.

This unorthodox practice goes against traditional international retailing rules. However it had proven successful for IKEA’s European operations, a...