By that I mean that Ikea furniture doesn't chase current trends the way all the other big chains do (I'm in Austria). So buying furniture from Ikea means that you can use it for a long time without your home looking from a certain area.
Also, going to Ikea with kids is a great experience. It's almost like going to a theme park, and alternatively you can drop them off at the Småland.
Some of them, multiple times.
Did you mean "era" given that you mentioned time? "Area" also sort of makes sense which is why I wanted to clarify.
Basically "IKEA" as a total entity is split into two parts, one is the stores and things related to that like customer support and property management. That bit is ultimately owned by a Dutch holding company and then a Dutch foundation.
The other bit is "the concept", the design and production of the furniture, and the logistics. That is ultimately owned by Interogo Foundation registered in Liechtenstein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:IKEA_ownership_chart
In practice it's all controlled by the Kamprad family, which currently live in England and Belgium according to wikipedia.
Reportedly the reason to have ownership in the Netherlands is to avoid taxes, which is a integral piece of the IKEA culture of cheapness.
If the Netherlands would rewrite those laws, the Kamprads wouldn't be able to do what they're doing.
Of course it is, they just use illegal loggers in Romania to offset their actual need for the crappy disposable stuff they produce. They seem to get away with that no problem, despite EU restrictions on it.
I've never seen the appeal of IKEA when it came to furniture, the long lines at some of the bigger ones I've been to (for breakfast) are baffling and you'd think they were giving the stuff away given how long some people would wait to get in. It all looks and feels so cheap, it looks like what they use when staging a home for sale or what a cheap studio set looks like for a 1 shot scene in a movie.
IKEA had to settle so many wrongful infant deaths in the US, something that arguably could have been prevented by the parents, but it doesn't undo the fact that it comes down to a sub-standard QC/QA practices and literately no engineering in their design team. But, IKEA (now a Dutch company not Swedish despite its branding) is the China of furniture and focuses on that business model: cheap, disposable items that are profitable only at immense scale.
> Well, just because they're producing something useful doesn't mean they can't give back at the same time! Small changes add up.
Ha, useful... I'm guessing you've never lived near a University. the amount of IKEA crap that shows up in the dumpsters near off campus apartments at the end of the term is enough to make you forget about the word 'useful' when describing IKEA ever again. I've spent most of my time near Universities in the US, and its always the same crap littering the area after finals. The cheap plywood gets warped if it snows outside so most of its damaged beyond repair for even 2nd hand use. I wanted some night stands to use as in the garage for my tools once when I was in HS and was willing to do some repair work, but after dragging the thing a block it literately fell apart and the plywood had disintegrated and warped beyond use.