August 11, 2017 • 44 mins
Will and Mango push aside the Fyrkantigs and Grönkulla, to hunt for IKEA’s secrets. Want to know why it considers 'air' the enemy? Or why IKEA cafeteria prices are really a Jedi mind-trick? Or how cheap the billionaire founder really is? (Spoiler: pretty cheap.) Featuring author Grady Hendrix, and STDWYTK’s Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mangos, that will all right. So this is
just a tip in case you ever find yourself in
the Netherlands, do not try to play Hide and Seek
an Ikea stores there. It's totally banned. What but Ikea
seems like the best place in the world to play
hidn't see a click with all those beds and closets
and house plants, I know. And I've got to say
ike has been cool with so many things over the years.
(00:20):
I mean, they've accommodated giants sleepovers. One time they allowed
a hundred cats to be released in the store just
for the fun of it. And in Shanghai, when seven
year old widows and widowers started using the free coffee
as an excuse to pick up singles, Ikia actually blocked
off corners of the store for them, you know, just
so they could flirt a little bit. Kind of cute
to think about. But when over thirty thousand Hide and
(00:42):
Seek fans signed up on Facebook to play a massive game,
that's where the company drew the line. In fact, here's
the official statement let me find it here. Martinez Smedberg
gave this to Bloomberg. It says we need to make
sure people are safe in our stores, and that's hard
to do if we don't know where they are. I mean,
she's on it sounds like she's anti hide and seek,
but she's really just, you know, against these thirty thousand
(01:04):
fully grown humans hiding in her But reading about that
policy made me curious about all the non human things
hiding out in Ikea, and that's what today's show is
all about. Yeah, Heather podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
(01:31):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend Man Gueshot Ticketer, and today we're talking about Ikea,
how the company got its start, the secrets hiding in
those flat pack boxes, and a whole lot more. But
before we begin, we just wanted to say a big
thank you to all the people who have taken the
time to write such nice reviews about our show, and
all the people who have taken the time to email us. Seriously,
thank you so much for listening. I know it's funny, like,
(01:53):
especially in contrast to what we talked about last week,
all those one star reviews of the Vatican right, it's
so heartwarming to see all these like notes pouring and
it's a little tricky because we can't just respond to
the reviewers and right right, so, um, I know you
were talking about this, and I was talking about this,
and we were thinking maybe we should get people to
write into the email account part time genius at how
(02:15):
stuff works dot com and send in their favorite furniture
or meatball related facts because of Ikea, right of course,
and uh, and send their address and their T shirt
size and we will pick the best twenty um facts
and send you a T shirt. Alright, alright, so the
best twenty that come in that can be about furniture
(02:35):
or meatballs, or maybe bonus points because somebody who comes
up with a fact that incorporates furniture and meatballs. Now, also,
remember we talked about in the last episode, we have
a new fact hot line because we're here for you.
We know how many interesting things you guys have to share.
That's one eight four four pt genius, all right, so
we look forward to hearing from you. And again it's
part time genius at how stuff works dot com, So
(02:57):
looking forward to hearing those facts. All right, enough with
this happiness, mango, I think we should tell people the
most surprising fact we found out about Ikea to determine
who gets to kick off the show. So that's how
we're going to start this home. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I'm game off, But why don't you start? All right?
The thing I'm always going to think about every time
I go into an Ikea store from now on is
(03:17):
that Hailey Joel Osmond was discovered in an Ikea. What. Yeah,
Apparently the Burbank Ikea is a celebrity destination and casting directors.
They used to use this to set up tables in
the front. They take polaroids of every kid who came
into the store. I don't know if they ask permission
or not, but that's where Haley Joel was discovered. That's
pretty wild. I mean I just figured his parents for
(03:38):
you know, typical stage parents and forcing him to go
to auditions. But I really love that there's a Hollywood Ikea.
It actually reminds me of this time my friend went
to a home depot and this guy cut him off
in the parking lot and uh and then the driver
waved this sort of nice apology and smiled, and it
turned out to be Justice Scalia. Be Justice like Supreme
(03:59):
Court justices shop at home depot. They're just like us.
Not not not like Justice Gary Scalio the State Court there. Wow,
that's amazing. Okay, I know I'm getting off track here,
but my favorite Supreme Court justice fact is that third
Good Marshall loved so proper I remember this, or at
least he loved days of our lives and he watched
it every single day. That that fact honestly makes me
(04:20):
so happy. I think we got a little track here,
back back here. So I read this U super weird
press release that I can put out that they are
now the biggest provider of certified seafood in the world,
the biggest. I mean, that's just unfathomable to me. Wow,
that's okay. I think you beat me with your facts.
And I know we don't want to keep talking about
(04:40):
food forever, but we should talk about it here for
a bit because I found some crazy facts on this topic.
Two and I know that's where you wanted to start
the discussion anyway. So before that, that sounds good. So actually,
before I get to that, I just wanted to tell
this quick story from when an Ikea moved into my
old neighborhood a few years ago, and it kind of
illustrates how savvy the company is so a lot of
people didn't want this big box store to come in,
(05:02):
and there was all this uproar about it. Right, But
then I Kea did a number of really smart things,
and one of them was that the bus service to
the neighborhood had always been really spotty, and I have
paid for a more frequent bus line with new buses,
and that led people to the store, but also better
serve the neighborhood. And then they did a whole thing
of hiring within the local community, which again made people
(05:23):
so much more accepting of it. They built the cafe
with this beautiful view of the harbor, and once the
store was actually in, people had few complaints and in fact,
it kind of became this popular cheap date night day,
like for married people. Know, it was like this ironic
first date, like you take someone on the bus and uh,
eat the super cheap meal at the cafe which had
this incredible view of the Statue of Liberty, and then
(05:46):
I guess a joke about your potential life together. But
the thing that really made the whole thing work and
appealing was how cheap the food was. It's definitely a deal.
I mean I remember saying that you can get too
hot dogs ana soda for two bucks, or you know
this really filling plate of pasta and meatballs for not
much more than that. Yeah, so I actually looked up
the menu for this episode to refresh myself, and the
(06:08):
prices are outrageous. So that play of pasta and meatballs
it's three dollars, And for a stuffed chicken with artichoke
and parmesan and two sides of vegetables, it's just a
dollar more. And going back to the seafood thing, you
can get a nice kind of salmon for around six
or seven dollars, like they want you to be able
to feed your entire family for under twenty dollars. Are
(06:29):
we getting paid for this because this is a commercial
for Ikea? But but I'm guessing there's more to it
than this. I'm guessing Ikea is treating the food like
a lost leader, you know, kind of the way the
grocery stores treat milk. You get, you know, you keep
the costs low, You're willing to lose a little bit
of money on it to bring the customers in the door,
and then you make your profits elsewhere. Sure, and that's
what I thought, too, right, But the reason I was
(06:49):
giving you those prices is that it's so much more
clever than that. Right, So everything in Ikea has a
story that ties back to its folksy origin. Part of
it is that the founder var Compra had this philosophy
back from when he started selling goods to farmers and
he realized that no one wanted to do business hungry.
So the foods sort of this down home way of
making you feel welcome. Also their I hear workers who
(07:12):
swear that the cafeteria is just a great place for
indecisive couples to like figure out what they really want.
They've seen these families come in and you and I
have seen this too, right where you just see them
like testing a couch and sitting and testing and discussing
and and then the couple goes to get a bite,
and during that conversation away from the showroom, that's where
they can really focus on their decision and decide whether
(07:34):
or not to make a purchase. Right, right, And it
makes sense. And having a cafeteria in the building keeps
you in the store, right, So having the food there,
it gives you one less reason to leave. And remember
I keas are often in remote destinations, so families have
to travel to get there. But here's the real kicker
and why the low priced food is so genius. And
I never would have figured this out on my own,
(07:55):
but I read this interview in the New York Post
with a former Ikea chef and he said, the food,
it is basically a framing device. The point is, you
don't actually know five dollars is a good value for
an Ikea couch. It could be a hundred dollars over
the worth or a hundred dollars under, and most shoppers
wouldn't have a clue. But you do know hot dogs
right and exactly, and you know the fifty cents for
(08:19):
a tasty hot dog is a great deal. Or three
dollars for a plate of pasta. I mean, it's kind
of the best deal you're gonna get outside of cooking
the food yourself. So shoppers think, if Ikea is giving
me this hot dog at cost, they've got to be
doing the same for the furniture. That is really smart.
I mean. But although I have to say it's kind
of funny to think about food being at cost because
the whole store, I mean, it's built on customers constructing
(08:41):
the furniture for themselves. Yeah, I had thought about that. Actually.
You know, there's so many meanings online about the assembly
required furniture, Like there was one that made me laugh.
It was just a picture. It said happy birthday, Ikea,
we made you a cake, and then underneath there was
a bag of sugar, some flour, butter if you candles,
and under it said some assembly required, which isn't exactly fair,
(09:05):
but the way they use the cafe prices as a
framing device, it totally works. Yeah. Yeah, and it's actually brilliant.
I mean, we should probably tell the listeners not to
worry because we'll move off food in a minute. But
before we do, there's one thing we have to talk about, meatballs,
So I was hoping you'd bring those up. I mean,
meatballs are definitely a Kia's best selling product. It's insane
how much money the cafe actually brings in. I found
(09:27):
this figure from two thousand thirteen. The Ikea cafeteria was
already doing one point five billion dollars of business back then.
But the meatballs are the lynchpin to the menu, and
internally they're actually referred to as the best sofa seller.
That's true. I mean what's amazing to me is that
the meatball actually kind of encapsulates the Ikea philosophy. And
(09:48):
why's that Well, Oliver Rohtor did this great article for
five thirty eight and he showed the economics of Ikea
and that Ikea products follow this strange kind of survival
of the fittest model. So basically, any furn sure that's
lasted for a while. I mean, you think about the
Billy bookcase or the lack table, or you know, any
of the all stars from their catalog, and they've lasted
(10:08):
because i Kea has consistently been able to tweak the
product to shave cost. You know, year after year they
do this, and so what this means is that they
can keep offering it a lower and lower price to
the customer. So when Ikia can't do that, you know,
for a product can't evolve to be made cheaper, that's
when they just kill it off. And the meatballs well,
actually they're the epitome of that. So not only has
(10:31):
the company figured out how to make more profitable meatballs
year after year, but you you've heard of Space tell right, yeah,
it's h he has secret innovation lab. They're pretty amazing Yeah.
So Space Tent is constantly eyeing the future, and one
of their projects is meatball focus that it's actually called
Tomorrow's Meatball. I'm not making I really want to. I
(10:52):
want to be on that team, that Tomorrow's meatball team.
But they have all these prototypes, from a meatball made
from artificial meat grown in a lab, to a three
D printed ball to a crispy bug ball, and while
none of those are hitting the menu anytime soon, it
does show how the company is looking at the simplest
things they can do in the simplest ways they can
produce these things, and even with that, they're trying to
(11:14):
figure out how to tweak the design and serve, you know,
a changing world while they're increasing their profits of course,
of course. Yeah. But but let's shift gears for a second,
because I want to talk about Jonathan Colton and his
song Ikea. Do you know the song? Why? I know
Jonathan Colton, I don't know the song. Yeah, he's hilarious,
but his song Ikea has this one lyric I love
it goes Ikea just some oak and some pine and
(11:36):
a handful of norsemen. Ikea selling furniture to college kids
and divorcement nice sounds about right. So as I was researching,
I kept thinking about that line, which is obviously funny,
but it occurred to me. I've always thought of Ikea
is kind of a starter brand, like it's the thing
people are drawn to in their first apartments or as
(11:57):
they're embarking on new stages, because it's reliable and stylish
without bringing the bank. It's almost like the signifier that
you're on the road to responsibility. But what's funny is
that I read this, uh the story in the New Yorker,
the one by Lauren Collins. Yeah, and and it's really good.
But one of the many lines that struck me in
it was that she referred to Ikea as the chief
(12:17):
anthropologist of homes, and she mentions how much research the
brand actually compiles to understand and then hook customers at
different stages of life, like they know the ideal size
of modern bathroom storage and what the split should be
between spouses because more and more men have been buying
more and more grooming products reasonally, or how the Ikea
(12:38):
tupperware and they referenced this in the catalogs, how it's
meant to accommodate the half can of tomatoes and an
ounce of Coast Coast recipe you just found, Like it's
really specific. It's say, that's pretty precise. How do they
know I like Coast Coast and they're actually designing for
like every momentous change in your life. Yeah, the amount
of information they've collected is really amazing. I actually have
(12:59):
the eight stages of life they target. I printed it
out here and here the categories. It's babies, toddlers, starting school,
tweens and teens, single slash, starting out, single slash established,
living together slash starting out and living together slash established.
It's crazy just to read these things, you know. So
they're looking at your life stages, and you know the
(13:21):
crib you suddenly have to buy as you plan to
have a baby, or the couch you'll want when you
have your first job, and then all the easy upgrades
from there, so the crib turns into a toddler bed,
the bookshelf you can stack next to the bookshelf when
your partner moves in. But the targeting definitely starts early.
There was this internal memo I saw that said, infant
cots are our ticket to building a lifelong relationship with
(13:44):
our core customers. You know. Um. One of the things
I found fascinating was that all the design actually starts
with the price. What do you mean by that, Well,
if you look at the design briefs, the I sends
around to their team and will be like, we need
a better looking spatula for a buck fifty in gray
and white. But the price I Kea wants for it
is actually in the specifications from the start. And that's
(14:04):
because cost and design their linked from conception. If one
of them isn't there, the product never gets off the ground.
I mean that that's pretty fascinating. What's also interesting to
me is that they're studying and designing for the whole globe,
so not just for one location. Like they figured out
the elements that cut across cultures and how to sell
a bed or a bookshelf that's plain enough but also
(14:26):
stylish enough to appeal the deal seekers in every market.
So you see this even in their catalog. So the
catalog and US might have a Golden retriever on the
couch and they'll photoshop that out if if you know,
if it's for like the Saudi catalog, Well they also
photo shop the women out of the Saudi catalog cut
them a little flak, but put your points absolutely right.
They found a couch that they can hawk across multiple markets,
(14:48):
right right, and that's what keeps, you know, the cost
going lower and lower those economies of scale. Speaking of
across the globe, Bloomberg used to run a Billy bookcase index,
where economists listed the price to the bookcase in various cultures.
And it's pretty fascinating, or was fascinating to look at.
It would help him understand the value of currency in
different markets. But it's so bizarre to me that the
(15:10):
cost was so wildly different between the markets. Like in
the UAE, for example, the billy used to cost about
forty six dollars, and then in Israel it was more
than twice that much. It was at a hundred and
three dollars, which is just crazy. That's crazy. By the way.
One thing I found really funny when I was looking
at this like cross culture stuff, was that people in
England really seemed to hate building the furniture themselves. And
(15:33):
maybe this happens in other countries too, but I found
a number of mom and pop shops that were specifically
dedicated to like building your ikea furniture free. I could
use that. I could use that. All right, We're definitely
gonna talk flat packs and the cult of ike as
billionaire founder. But before we do that, how about we
break for a little quiz? Sounds good. Our guest today
(15:54):
is Grady Hendricks, author of My Best Friends Exorcism, and
also the reason we have him on today's show is
because he's the author of the wonderful book Horror Store,
which looks like a beautifully designed Ikea catalog but takes
place in a totally different setting, the Orsk Superstore in Cleveland.
Welcome to the show, Grady, Thanks for having me here.
(16:15):
So Grady, I've read that you do an insane amount
of research for your books. Like I heard that you
mapped out all the weather for each day for where
My Best Friends Exorcism, so so it was accurate and um.
And then I read that you interviewed a ton of
people at Ikea to learn more about the stories, and
I was curious, how did that inform your writing? You know,
it's actually the reason I wound up calling it worse.
(16:36):
It wasn't just because my publisher was scared we get
sued by idea, but also because everyone I talked to
from my key and probably I talked about it about
a dozen folks who worked there unprompted. They all said
really nice things about Ikea, and that's really rare for
people who work in retail. But you know, as far
as it goes, it's a pretty decent employer. Um. You know,
(16:57):
no one has murdered uh to like protein bars for
the other other employees. No one turned into meat ball
for the cafeteria. They all go home with all their
body parts at the end of the day. And I
think as far as big box retail goes in the US,
that's that's pretty good. Yeah. I do have to ask, though,
having having done this book, are are you banned from
my keas? No? But I sort of self banned myself.
(17:20):
I spent so much time in them while I was
writing it, and then I didn't go in one for
about a year and a half. And I went in
and one in New York to do an interview with
someone right when the book was coming out, and they're
all made out the same, and I suddenly started doing
this real panic reaction, like, oh my god, where am
I Am I in my book? Am I in somewhere room?
I I mean in Florida, I really was disorienting. So um,
(17:43):
I only order i Kea online. Now that's very great.
And what about the idea to design this as a catalog.
It's it's so inventive. Did you did you come up
with that from the starter or was that something you
imposed on it later? No, that was actually Jason, my
editor's idea, and he that was that was his baby
from the beginning in terms of this will look like
an IKEA catalog. And then the nice thing about work
(18:06):
is because it's so small, they actually listen to the
author when you talk about design, and they let you
be involved with that conversation. And so Jason and Andy
read the designer and myself we just started to feed
off of each other. You know, well what if we
had a furniture description beginning to each chapter? Well what
if they change, you know? And then I have written
catalog copy and stuff in the past, so you know
everything in there, right down to the small print on
(18:27):
the order form. I insisted on sort of doing myself,
which was a really poor idea. I'm gonna say I
love Quirk like, I really think that they play so
well with authors and and and so so much attention
goes to all the details. I really love that. So
so it is will will your next project be with
Quirk And if so, what are you working on next? Yeah?
(18:48):
The next book I have coming out from them is UM.
It's called Paperbacks from Hell, and it's actually a nonfiction
book coming out this September. It's about UM, the history
of horror paid for backs in the seventies and eighties.
I think everyone who was a live around them remembers
those really lurid covers of the foil and the embossing
and the die cuts that showed, you know, the girl's
(19:10):
face and then you open it up and it's like, oh,
the beings on the end of the bear and board
like you know it's UM and and those sort of
disappeared in the early nineties and I read those and
write about them a little online just for kicks, and
Jason was like, do you want to do a book
of these? So the result is Paperbacks from Hell. It's
got a ton of art in it, and it really
goes a lot about the artists and who did the covers,
(19:32):
and how this sort of lived and died and why
you should be scared of Nazi leprecons and why not
LEPrecon the Nazis in the first place. I can't wait?
All right, So, so what game are we playing the
day with Grady Mango. We're gonna play a little game
called kitchen good from Ikea or word. The Swedish chef says, okay, well,
if we speak whatever language the Swedish chef does, this
(19:54):
should be easy and we'll give you a word and
you just tell us whether it's an Ikea kitchen good
or something. The Swedish chef says, so are you ready, Grady?
You should know my palms are already sweaty. Okay, I
think you'll do better than you expect. All right, here
we go. Number one elver damn Ikea product or something.
(20:14):
The Swedish chef says, I'm gonna go with Ikea products. Yeah,
one for one beautiful faucet. Al right, okay, maybe maybe
maybe we'll help him out with some some pronunciation as well.
And the next one is Guerndee. You know I'm gonna
go with the Swedish chef. You're absolutely right. I think
(20:42):
I remember this from the Senates Gersh Gerndi, Morndy Burn
burn d if I'm not mistaken right, Okay, two for two.
Number three Baganas. I believe that's an Ikea product for three?
What what? What? What are baganas? They're a fancy nob
for your drawer. Okay, I fancy not free doors two more.
(21:02):
Here we go. Number four, Farney, You know I'm gonna guess,
but I'm going to use the tried tradition of one
for wheel one one way, one the other, and I'm
gonna say sweetish chef. You might recognize it from the
sentence sure to chicken into Farney hug So quotes from
a Muppets movie. Yes, they are all right for the
perfect score, let's go for number five. Bean C, bean C. Okay,
(21:28):
I'm gonna stick with my with my guesting pattern and
go with Ikea. Oh it's the only one you missed.
But that that this was the so de beancy bouncy Burger.
So I'm so good at this. All right? Well, how
has Grady done today? Grady did an amazing four for five,
which is enough to earn him our Grand Prize. Total admiration.
Well done, Grady. Thank you so much for Johnny. We
(21:50):
can't wait to see your next project, Paperbacks from Hell.
But thank you again for writing Horror Store and for
being on Part Time Genius. Thank you for not letting
me embarrass myself too badly. Welcome back to Part Time Genius.
(22:14):
And we were about to talk flat packs, all right,
So do you like putting together? I kea furniture Mango,
so I know there are all these things about the furniture,
like there are some couples therapists who make couples build
a piece of furniture together to work through their communications.
Sounds terrible. I don't think I could do that with anybody,
But I mean, how many lopsided tables and chairs do
you have to make before you realize you're either right
or wrong for somebody. I also like that the furniture
(22:36):
is used in robotics, though, like having a robot watch
humans as symbol and ikea piece in different ways and
then they determine the most efficient way, and that that's
kind of become this common exercise in robotics. Yeah, it's
awesome and uh, and to tell you the truth, I
actually love putting together. I kea furniture because I'm not
super handy, but it reminds me of those snap tight
(22:57):
model kits from when I was a kid, like, you
just snap all these parts in place and voila. It's
just so satisfying. Speak for yourself. I'm not a fan,
but it is funny that you mentioned that, because there's
actually a name for that, and it's called the Ikea effect.
So Harvard Business School has actually done studies on this.
And the weirder part is that you end up with
a bias and I'm quoting here. It says you place
(23:18):
a disproportionately higher value on the Ikea furniture that you
make because your handiwork has gone into it. That's kind
of like those cake mixes from the fifties. You know
about these, right, don't Well, when they used to make
cake mixes, Initially the eggs weren't actually necessary for the
instant cake mixes, but they couldn't get housewives to buy
them because it didn't really feel like cooking. It was
(23:39):
almost like cheating. But when a brand started adding cracking
a few eggs to make the batter, suddenly the product
took off. It kind of like tricked people into feeling
like they were making more of a cake somehow, right, right,
And and that might be part of why we're a
little more reluctant to get rid of their I Kea furniture,
and then you know, it sticks around a little bit
longer than it should because of that that pride of
what they've built. But you know that's not why I
(24:00):
Kia flat packs their furniture. It actually has a great
origin story. Oh I actually know this, but you should
definitely tell it to the listeners. Okay, Well, our our
story goes back to this guy, Gillis Loundgren, and by
the time he joined i Kea, it was already this
bustling regional furniture business. But the furniture was bulky, and
it came pre assembled and it was pretty expensive to ship.
So London goes on to manage the catalog and design
(24:22):
a bunch of furniture later. But in the early nineteen fifties,
he was just trying to transport a leaf shaped table
to a photo shoot. It was clunky and couldn't fit
in his car, and so he took the legs off
to make it fit, and that's when inspiration struck. But
flat pack furniture has existed for way longer than that.
Rye actually, another Swedish designer, would come up with a
flat pack chair a few years before, but it wasn't
(24:44):
all that well known, and this is all part of
the I kea lore now. But according to some versions,
and these are the ones that that I believe, Londgren
had to really lobby the company's founder, Ingvar compre to
change the flat pack and and there are other less
likely tellings where Ingvar was put sishing the table into
a car with Lundgren and they came up with this
idea together. So who knows the exact story, but it
(25:05):
was something along these lines. Yeah, so there's a phrasing company.
The language my family speaks that a story has been
told with meeting Massala, and it means like a story
has been seasoned with salt and spice to make it
more juicy or appealing. We didn't have that phrase in
Alabama for some reason. But I do love meeting Massala.
But we'll talk about Ingvar and his legend in a bit,
because he's definitely a genius but obviously comes with some
(25:27):
issues too. But what's definitely true is that flat pack
change the business prospects completely. So over the years the
company started referring to air as their enemy. And when
you pack things that flat not only are you transferring
the cost of assembly to your buyer, so you know,
so you can lower the price and underbid the competition.
But it basically has all these other advantages and uh,
(25:49):
what what are this? Well, actually, there's this this great
Fast Company piece by John Browley on this and here's
what he points out. All right, So he says, first,
you can keep way more furniture in stock because you
only need you know, a few models, and then you
can keep the rest and volume and back and and
it's also way easier to transport. So i Kea was
shipping ten times as many bookcases or desks or whatever
(26:12):
it was as the competition for basically the same amount
of spend on gas. And this is the point I
would never have figured out. But Brawley said that the
boxy aesthetic that's taken over the globe that's also coming
from the flat pack design, and that's kind of amazing.
And clearly i Kea as genius, as you point out earlier,
is by making these products in bulk and then iterating
on them so they just get cheaper and cheaper. Yeah,
(26:33):
you know the Ikea mugs which are so popular, I mean,
the reason they've lasted is that they have this really
tiny handle and it's just this little circle on the
top of a conical mug. But that ends up being,
you know, what allows them to stack a ton more
of these mugs on top of one another. I mean,
they're just geniuses in reducing the amount of air in
between each of their products. So the thing about Ikea
(26:55):
is there's really so much to cover. But let's talk
just for a little bit about ing Vibe because he's fascinating.
I mean, he was basically an entrepreneur from the time
he was a kid, and by eighteen he'd been given
a little money from his dad, uh mostly for doing
well in school despite his dyslexia, and he turned that
money into a little catalog business that kept growing and growing. Also,
(27:17):
I love that he grew up in Small End, Like
I always thought Small End the kid's babysitting part of
Ikea was just a cute name, but it's a reference
to his hometown. That's true. I saw that as well.
You know, he's kind of a mythic figure at Ikea,
and his farm boy common sense or thrift is a
big part of the company ethos. Like there's this one
story about ingvar looking at a case of geese and
a refrigerator in China and asking, so what happens to
(27:40):
those feathers? Like he spotted that deal and everyone in
the company knows about it, and he lives that way too.
I mean, his homes are all furnished exclusively in Ikea.
He drives this old Volvo and for his ninetieth birthday
he was interviewed and he was supposedly wearing clothes that
he found at a thrift store, which you know, I mean,
he's he's of the richest billionaires in the world. But
(28:02):
as we mentioned in the tax episode way back when,
there's a lot of secrecy at the company, and it's
not without its dark past. But before we get into that,
why don't we pause for quiz? All right, mango, So
our second quiz today, we decided to find a couple
of people who have actually assembled Ikea furniture before. We
(28:26):
didn't have to go very far for this, did we
We place the song wide call out and we walked
a few stuffs from our desk to get to right.
That's right. So we have a few friends from here
at the How Stuff Works Family, Noel Brown and Ben Boland.
They're the host of one of my favorite shows here
at How Stuff Works called Stuff they Don't Want You
to Know. Welcome, guys, Thank you, thanks for having us right.
I have to tell you actually, just this morning I
(28:48):
was listening to your most recent episode on this continuation
of Government plan and on bunkers and like what happens
with the government after either a nuclear attack or something
that may happen that causes mass chaos, And it was awesome, guys,
such a great interview. Tell us a little bit about
that one. Oh sure, yeah, so we interviewed Garrett Graff,
(29:09):
who is a pretty prolific author and a favorite of
ours when it comes to credible investigations into stuff They'll
want you to know. It turns out, then the United States,
for decades, the US government has spent quite a bit
of financial effort, quite a bit of blood, sweat and tears,
(29:32):
in creating top secret bunkers that will allow not everyone
but the people they deem important to the continuation of
the U. S Government to survive anything from a widespread
plague to an act of God to a nuclear disaster.
I was sadly absent for this episode, so I look
forward to consuming it just like you, guys. Did and
(29:52):
it sounds awesome. Yeah. It spoiler. The bunkers are filled
with ire, right, Yeah, there is a several of the
bunkers are produced by Ikeas so they can be easily
disassembled and reassembled like those little kind of pre made
rooms that you see in the showroom, you know, like
the double decker bunk beds with the desk underneath. There
was another episode that I love from you guys recently
(30:14):
where you interviewed actually the founder of of How Stuff Works,
Marshall Brain, and it was about life on Mars. You know,
something we don't really think about it. After the efforts
to get to Mars. There's so much talk about like
how do we get to Mars, and then there's not
as much thought from a lot of people about like, okay,
we're here, now, how the heck do we actually live here?
You know. We tried to caveat that one as much
as possible as being a thought experiment, you know. So
(30:37):
we got a lot of a little bit of flak,
people saying we were kind of like promoting communism because
a lot of the ideas of you know, how do
we start a society from scratch? You end up with
some little nuggets of kind of communism kind of thought
in there, but we we tried to look at both sides,
and Marshall was a very gracious guest and a very
interesting intelligent guy. Was a lot of fun to talk
to him about this crazy stuff, and so yeah, he is.
(31:00):
He's also wants us to make sure every time we
mentioned that episode to let people know that you can
go to Marshall brain dot com and you can write
to him directly with any prayers or feedback. All right, well,
something almost as heavy as the continuation of government plan
and bunkers. We're going to play a quiz here, Mango,
(31:20):
What what quiz are we putting these guys up to?
We're playing a little game called Boys of Ikea. All
As it turns out, I'm a proud owner of both
a mom, a schmool and some yarn. So, Mango, this
is the second Ikea product squiz we're doing today. I know,
but they're so fun, that's true. Well, as you might know,
Ikea has different naming schemes for their furniture, so carpets
(31:43):
are often Danish place names, or the lighting might be
chemistry terms. But today we're quizzing you on furniture that's
named after common boys names. Okay, so this is what
we're gonna do. We're gonna show you a picture of
a piece of furniture and then we'll give you a clue,
and you just have to tell us the boy's name. Okay,
you got this. This is what we're gonna do. Mango
(32:04):
has these very helpful pictures here. I know, just looking
at that chair you immediately away. But we have to
give clues for the listeners. That's right, could that possibly
be a giveaway? And uh? And because you're competing against
each other, and because we don't have busters, we're gonna
ask you to either move or kaka when you know
the answer. So, uh, can we do either one? Okay? Okay,
(32:28):
So would you like to move? Uh? Sure, I'll take
them more. Would I can see you? Eba? No, no
move Benelka. Okay, here we go. All right, you guys
ready to play. Okay, let's show them picture number one,
number one. Okay, here we go. This folding bar stool
with back rest doubles as the name of the first
(32:50):
African American character from the Peanuts name that I kea
boy panic? I don't know? Okay, chairs name with the Roosevelt,
Oh Franklin. Yes, one to nothing. Here we go. Question
question number two. Yeah, let's let's let's work on the
(33:11):
okay here all right. Although this dining chair was retired,
the tennis player who shares its name just won his
eighth Wimbledon and shows no signs of slowing down. Can
you name that? I kea boy? His last name is Federer?
Al right, Ben Kevin. I was thinking, I think no
(33:39):
one gets that point by default. Roger. There we go. Yeah, alright,
funny that we were on the same wave like that.
Here we go, all right. Question number three. These stackable
chairs were easy to move thanks to the hole in
the back rest. The furniture also shares its name with
(34:01):
the patriarch of the Munster family on television. All right,
who is it? Yes, Arman Munster? Well done, I think
we're okay, it's two to one, nol Is that right? Okay?
Number four. This leather and steel bar stool shares its
name with a Caesar, the one who was kidnapped by
pirates and then demanded that they up there ransom because
(34:24):
he was worth much more than what they were asking. Alright,
I'll take the big Okay, let's hear it. It's gonna
be wrong though, Julius. Yeah, correct yourself, all right, the
big tidebreaker. Here a number five feeling it. Here's the
here's the photo. Okay, so that's that's that's it looks
the same as number one and three. This is such
(34:45):
a great, such great audio pictures. All right, here we go.
This modern folding chair shares its first name with an
American writer. After he wrote, the raven children would run
up to him on the street, let me finish the question,
and then did they? Let's see, after he wrote, the
raven children would run up to him in the street,
(35:07):
flapping their wings and calling nevermore. Let's let you guys
on the count of three say it together, one to three, Edgar,
So what does that mean? We we'll give him a
time because we don't want to start an office fight.
We're gonna give them each of five dollar gift card
to Ikea, the cheapest gift card you can get to Ikea.
(35:30):
Oh my gosh, no, no, we're going to the cafeteria.
Is enough for their Swedish meat at meat balls and
that's a lot of meatballs. Well, I hope everyone well listening.
We'll check out stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
thanks so much for joining. Thank you. So I don't
(35:57):
want to get too deep into this, but we were
going to talk a little bit about ing bars darker history. Right. So,
the company definitely makes use of tax shelters, and Ikea
itself is registered as a nonprofit, where for a company
that does thirty billion dollars or more in sales, there's
not a lot of nonprofit work to show. But I
think the thing that really shocked me is that ng
Bar had been part of a far right Swedish party
(36:19):
when he was younger. He was a fan of this
fascist per eng Doll and at first it sounded to
the press pretty superficial, and then it became clear he'd
done some heavy recruiting for the party and had a
police file. Anyway, he's apologized for it, and he's called
it the silly phase in his life and it's something
he regrets. But he only does interviews with journalists he
(36:39):
vets now and he keeps a really tight control over
the narrative. But all that's complicated by the fact that
there's also been some concern that the company is really
insular and that upper management is almost all from small land. Supposedly,
you can't make it up in the company if you
don't come from that region. Well, on the other hand,
once those comments came out, the company did make a
big effort to diversify. Yeah, and by all accounts they
(37:02):
have and the workers have really high satisfaction ratings, like
they get great gifts at the holidays, and um I
KEA used to use this m I T living wage
calculator and they did that so that they could make
sure employees and different regions all got paid well or
well enough to live. And now they're really trying to
be a force for environmental good too. Yeah. I mean,
there's there's a lot packed in there. And there this
(37:23):
book from a former employee that I guess got a
lot of press, and it talks about ing var with pride,
but also describes the end fighting that goes on to
please him, which you know, supposedly he stirs that up.
But whatever else, he's still this pretty beloved figure in Sweden.
But before we go, let's break from this topic and
talk a little bit about one of the things I
think is just genius, and that's how the store flows.
(37:44):
I mean, it kind of reminds me of the you know,
the gentle way of grocery store guides you along. And
how's that? Well, you know how grocery stores try to
lead you counterclockwise, and and that's because most people are
right handed, which I know that sounds like fake marketing advice,
but because those people are closer to the shelves with
their right hand, there's actually a seven or eight percent
increase in sales when stores switched to that direction. Yeah.
(38:07):
I remember reading that if you walk the store in
the opposite direction, you'll actually spend less. And even though
I know that, like I can't fight the current, I
always have to go with the flood. I get it,
I get it, and I key has even more like that.
The whole store is intended to be this lazy river
that pulls you along. And every fifty feet or so,
there's a curve in the path because there's always supposed
(38:29):
to be something enticing hiding right around the corner, you know.
In fact, according to Lauren Collins piece, she says, any
long stretch that doesn't make a turn is referred to
as an audubon, which is code for, as she says,
a big boring mistake. I love that so Um, I
actually know what you mean. Like, when I've been in
the stores, it really does feel like a giant maze
(38:49):
moving in one direction, and it's kind of all pulling
you towards the register. I'm not sure if you remember this,
but Jess Hollinger did this piece for a Metal Last
some years ago. I do remember that, Yeah, yeah, And
and she talked to a bunch of Akia employees and
one of the things she discovered was that there are
actually all these hidden shortcuts in every idea, Like there
are unmarked doors that will take you upstairs or downstairs,
or little entrances between a bedroom department that will take
(39:12):
you to the carpet section and you can skip through
four or five sections. It's it actually feels to me
like one of those pipes and Super Mario Brothers that
lets you skip to the end of a level or something.
But I've got to tell you, the last time I
got stuck in Ikea for way too long, I started
scouting for the secret passageways and using them, and it
made my trip so much more fun. Way you can
do this that nobody tried to stop you from doing that. Yeah,
(39:34):
that's the best part. I mean, those passageways are mostly
there to be helpful for workers, but they're also there
in case of emergencies. And as long as the door
doesn't say employees only, Ikia won't really hassle you about
poking around. I mean, this is the same store that
lets customers in China sleep on their beds for hours. Actually,
speaking of those, I love those photos of people test driving,
(39:55):
you know, the merchandise there. The other thing, an employee
to the Metal Floss was that the stores will actually
change the pathways every once in a while, So maybe
that the hide and Sea enthusiasts you've talked about in
the beginning don't get too familiar with. It's also interesting
how much business Ikea doesn't impulse buys, Like once you're
past the furniture and all the things you came to buy,
(40:15):
the last part of the i Kea store is actually
called the open the Wallets section, and that's where all
the things you need but would never come to an
i Kea specifically for they're waiting for you right there.
It could be anything from a plastic picnic plate to
a two dollar vase, but it's at such steep discounts
that you just can't resist. Well, that's the magic of
(40:36):
the bullah bullah, that's right. I don't know if you
said this. For like, every single article I read about
I can't mentioned how they have this special way of
stacking a hundred different items into a bin just to
accentuate how affordable all this stuff is. That and the
fact that they always keep like shopping bags every fifty
feet so you never have an excuse not to pick
up more stuff, Well then it clearly works. I mean,
on the one hand, I TA feels so folksy, and
(40:57):
yet the brand is so big it's just izzy. I mean,
like people always mentioned how one out of every ten
Europeans was conceived on an Ikea bed. Yeah, that's such
a crazy stat and I actually read a funny line
in The Atlantic about it. They called Ikea beds the
literal cradle of humanity. But you also hear that sad
a lot about how i Kea uses one percent of
the world's would to make its furniture. Yeah, I mean,
(41:20):
that's that's right. But the thing that really brought it
home for me was this line from the New Yorker
piece let me let me just read it here. It says, uh,
when Ikia stopped selling incandescent lightbulbs. Last year, six hundred
and twenty six million people became environmentalists. I mean it's
just stunning. Yeah, it's crazy how big they are. But um,
speaking of stunning, why don't we do a little fact
off while we're while we're on the subject, all right,
(41:42):
m okay, here's one to kick it off. So in
the Netherlands, Ikea had to stop offering a one euro
breakfast on weekends because the country's road couldn't accommodate the traffic.
That's insane. So here's something I didn't realize about the
(42:06):
IKEA catalog is c G I now, no way. Yeah.
Not only is the computer generated catalog cheaper for the company,
but it makes it easier to tweak the catalog for
different markets. That's impressive. All right, here's the crazy thing
I learned. So we pronounced Ikea wrong. In America, we
call it i Kea, but it's actually e ka. So
we talked a little about the naming system in the
(42:28):
quiz earlier. But the reason all the bookcases are boys
names or professions or the betting is all named for
flowers and plants. It's because ing bar is dyslexic. It
was an easier taxonomy than numbers for him to keep
track of everything. All I kind of love that. Al Right,
here's something that's totally bonkers. So in nineteen seventy three,
the company was growing so fast it accidentally opened an
(42:49):
Ikea and the wrong Town in Germany. Apparently it was
supposed to go up in constands, but it went up
in Kobe Lens instead. I mean, anybody can make that
a thing, though. Yeah, even though that fact makes no
sense to me, I I love it. So I'm gonna
let you walk away with the belt this week. And
for those of you listening at home, don't forget to
(43:10):
write us at part Time Genius at how stuff Works
dot com and please send in your favorite meatball and
furniture facts. A lot of you are gonna walk away
with t shirts. Thank you so much for listening. Okay,
(43:34):
thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy
sound thing. Garry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
(43:57):
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
We forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what, mangos, that will all right. So this is
just a tip in case you ever find yourself in
the Netherlands, do not try to play Hide and Seek
an Ikea stores there. It's totally banned. What but Ikea
seems like the best place in the world to play
hidn't see a click with all those beds and closets
and house plants, I know. And I've got to say
ike has been cool with so many things over the years.
(00:20):
I mean, they've accommodated giants sleepovers. One time they allowed
a hundred cats to be released in the store just
for the fun of it. And in Shanghai, when seven
year old widows and widowers started using the free coffee
as an excuse to pick up singles, Ikia actually blocked
off corners of the store for them, you know, just
so they could flirt a little bit. Kind of cute
to think about. But when over thirty thousand Hide and
(00:42):
Seek fans signed up on Facebook to play a massive game,
that's where the company drew the line. In fact, here's
the official statement let me find it here. Martinez Smedberg
gave this to Bloomberg. It says we need to make
sure people are safe in our stores, and that's hard
to do if we don't know where they are. I mean,
she's on it sounds like she's anti hide and seek,
but she's really just, you know, against these thirty thousand
(01:04):
fully grown humans hiding in her But reading about that
policy made me curious about all the non human things
hiding out in Ikea, and that's what today's show is
all about. Yeah, Heather podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
(01:31):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend Man Gueshot Ticketer, and today we're talking about Ikea,
how the company got its start, the secrets hiding in
those flat pack boxes, and a whole lot more. But
before we begin, we just wanted to say a big
thank you to all the people who have taken the
time to write such nice reviews about our show, and
all the people who have taken the time to email us. Seriously,
thank you so much for listening. I know it's funny, like,
(01:53):
especially in contrast to what we talked about last week,
all those one star reviews of the Vatican right, it's
so heartwarming to see all these like notes pouring and
it's a little tricky because we can't just respond to
the reviewers and right right, so, um, I know you
were talking about this, and I was talking about this,
and we were thinking maybe we should get people to
write into the email account part time genius at how
(02:15):
stuff works dot com and send in their favorite furniture
or meatball related facts because of Ikea, right of course,
and uh, and send their address and their T shirt
size and we will pick the best twenty um facts
and send you a T shirt. Alright, alright, so the
best twenty that come in that can be about furniture
(02:35):
or meatballs, or maybe bonus points because somebody who comes
up with a fact that incorporates furniture and meatballs. Now, also,
remember we talked about in the last episode, we have
a new fact hot line because we're here for you.
We know how many interesting things you guys have to share.
That's one eight four four pt genius, all right, so
we look forward to hearing from you. And again it's
part time genius at how stuff works dot com, So
(02:57):
looking forward to hearing those facts. All right, enough with
this happiness, mango, I think we should tell people the
most surprising fact we found out about Ikea to determine
who gets to kick off the show. So that's how
we're going to start this home. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I'm game off, But why don't you start? All right?
The thing I'm always going to think about every time
I go into an Ikea store from now on is
(03:17):
that Hailey Joel Osmond was discovered in an Ikea. What. Yeah,
Apparently the Burbank Ikea is a celebrity destination and casting directors.
They used to use this to set up tables in
the front. They take polaroids of every kid who came
into the store. I don't know if they ask permission
or not, but that's where Haley Joel was discovered. That's
pretty wild. I mean I just figured his parents for
(03:38):
you know, typical stage parents and forcing him to go
to auditions. But I really love that there's a Hollywood Ikea.
It actually reminds me of this time my friend went
to a home depot and this guy cut him off
in the parking lot and uh and then the driver
waved this sort of nice apology and smiled, and it
turned out to be Justice Scalia. Be Justice like Supreme
(03:59):
Court justices shop at home depot. They're just like us.
Not not not like Justice Gary Scalio the State Court there. Wow,
that's amazing. Okay, I know I'm getting off track here,
but my favorite Supreme Court justice fact is that third
Good Marshall loved so proper I remember this, or at
least he loved days of our lives and he watched
it every single day. That that fact honestly makes me
(04:20):
so happy. I think we got a little track here,
back back here. So I read this U super weird
press release that I can put out that they are
now the biggest provider of certified seafood in the world,
the biggest. I mean, that's just unfathomable to me. Wow,
that's okay. I think you beat me with your facts.
And I know we don't want to keep talking about
(04:40):
food forever, but we should talk about it here for
a bit because I found some crazy facts on this topic.
Two and I know that's where you wanted to start
the discussion anyway. So before that, that sounds good. So actually,
before I get to that, I just wanted to tell
this quick story from when an Ikea moved into my
old neighborhood a few years ago, and it kind of
illustrates how savvy the company is so a lot of
people didn't want this big box store to come in,
(05:02):
and there was all this uproar about it. Right, But
then I Kea did a number of really smart things,
and one of them was that the bus service to
the neighborhood had always been really spotty, and I have
paid for a more frequent bus line with new buses,
and that led people to the store, but also better
serve the neighborhood. And then they did a whole thing
of hiring within the local community, which again made people
(05:23):
so much more accepting of it. They built the cafe
with this beautiful view of the harbor, and once the
store was actually in, people had few complaints and in fact,
it kind of became this popular cheap date night day,
like for married people. Know, it was like this ironic
first date, like you take someone on the bus and uh,
eat the super cheap meal at the cafe which had
this incredible view of the Statue of Liberty, and then
(05:46):
I guess a joke about your potential life together. But
the thing that really made the whole thing work and
appealing was how cheap the food was. It's definitely a deal.
I mean I remember saying that you can get too
hot dogs ana soda for two bucks, or you know
this really filling plate of pasta and meatballs for not
much more than that. Yeah, so I actually looked up
the menu for this episode to refresh myself, and the
(06:08):
prices are outrageous. So that play of pasta and meatballs
it's three dollars, And for a stuffed chicken with artichoke
and parmesan and two sides of vegetables, it's just a
dollar more. And going back to the seafood thing, you
can get a nice kind of salmon for around six
or seven dollars, like they want you to be able
to feed your entire family for under twenty dollars. Are
(06:29):
we getting paid for this because this is a commercial
for Ikea? But but I'm guessing there's more to it
than this. I'm guessing Ikea is treating the food like
a lost leader, you know, kind of the way the
grocery stores treat milk. You get, you know, you keep
the costs low, You're willing to lose a little bit
of money on it to bring the customers in the door,
and then you make your profits elsewhere. Sure, and that's
what I thought, too, right, But the reason I was
(06:49):
giving you those prices is that it's so much more
clever than that. Right, So everything in Ikea has a
story that ties back to its folksy origin. Part of
it is that the founder var Compra had this philosophy
back from when he started selling goods to farmers and
he realized that no one wanted to do business hungry.
So the foods sort of this down home way of
making you feel welcome. Also their I hear workers who
(07:12):
swear that the cafeteria is just a great place for
indecisive couples to like figure out what they really want.
They've seen these families come in and you and I
have seen this too, right where you just see them
like testing a couch and sitting and testing and discussing
and and then the couple goes to get a bite,
and during that conversation away from the showroom, that's where
they can really focus on their decision and decide whether
(07:34):
or not to make a purchase. Right, right, And it
makes sense. And having a cafeteria in the building keeps
you in the store, right, So having the food there,
it gives you one less reason to leave. And remember
I keas are often in remote destinations, so families have
to travel to get there. But here's the real kicker
and why the low priced food is so genius. And
I never would have figured this out on my own,
(07:55):
but I read this interview in the New York Post
with a former Ikea chef and he said, the food,
it is basically a framing device. The point is, you
don't actually know five dollars is a good value for
an Ikea couch. It could be a hundred dollars over
the worth or a hundred dollars under, and most shoppers
wouldn't have a clue. But you do know hot dogs
right and exactly, and you know the fifty cents for
(08:19):
a tasty hot dog is a great deal. Or three
dollars for a plate of pasta. I mean, it's kind
of the best deal you're gonna get outside of cooking
the food yourself. So shoppers think, if Ikea is giving
me this hot dog at cost, they've got to be
doing the same for the furniture. That is really smart.
I mean. But although I have to say it's kind
of funny to think about food being at cost because
the whole store, I mean, it's built on customers constructing
(08:41):
the furniture for themselves. Yeah, I had thought about that. Actually.
You know, there's so many meanings online about the assembly
required furniture, Like there was one that made me laugh.
It was just a picture. It said happy birthday, Ikea,
we made you a cake, and then underneath there was
a bag of sugar, some flour, butter if you candles,
and under it said some assembly required, which isn't exactly fair,
(09:05):
but the way they use the cafe prices as a
framing device, it totally works. Yeah. Yeah, and it's actually brilliant.
I mean, we should probably tell the listeners not to
worry because we'll move off food in a minute. But
before we do, there's one thing we have to talk about, meatballs,
So I was hoping you'd bring those up. I mean,
meatballs are definitely a Kia's best selling product. It's insane
how much money the cafe actually brings in. I found
(09:27):
this figure from two thousand thirteen. The Ikea cafeteria was
already doing one point five billion dollars of business back then.
But the meatballs are the lynchpin to the menu, and
internally they're actually referred to as the best sofa seller.
That's true. I mean what's amazing to me is that
the meatball actually kind of encapsulates the Ikea philosophy. And
(09:48):
why's that Well, Oliver Rohtor did this great article for
five thirty eight and he showed the economics of Ikea
and that Ikea products follow this strange kind of survival
of the fittest model. So basically, any furn sure that's
lasted for a while. I mean, you think about the
Billy bookcase or the lack table, or you know, any
of the all stars from their catalog, and they've lasted
(10:08):
because i Kea has consistently been able to tweak the
product to shave cost. You know, year after year they
do this, and so what this means is that they
can keep offering it a lower and lower price to
the customer. So when Ikia can't do that, you know,
for a product can't evolve to be made cheaper, that's
when they just kill it off. And the meatballs well,
actually they're the epitome of that. So not only has
(10:31):
the company figured out how to make more profitable meatballs
year after year, but you you've heard of Space tell right, yeah,
it's h he has secret innovation lab. They're pretty amazing Yeah.
So Space Tent is constantly eyeing the future, and one
of their projects is meatball focus that it's actually called
Tomorrow's Meatball. I'm not making I really want to. I
(10:52):
want to be on that team, that Tomorrow's meatball team.
But they have all these prototypes, from a meatball made
from artificial meat grown in a lab, to a three
D printed ball to a crispy bug ball, and while
none of those are hitting the menu anytime soon, it
does show how the company is looking at the simplest
things they can do in the simplest ways they can
produce these things, and even with that, they're trying to
(11:14):
figure out how to tweak the design and serve, you know,
a changing world while they're increasing their profits of course,
of course. Yeah. But but let's shift gears for a second,
because I want to talk about Jonathan Colton and his
song Ikea. Do you know the song? Why? I know
Jonathan Colton, I don't know the song. Yeah, he's hilarious,
but his song Ikea has this one lyric I love
it goes Ikea just some oak and some pine and
(11:36):
a handful of norsemen. Ikea selling furniture to college kids
and divorcement nice sounds about right. So as I was researching,
I kept thinking about that line, which is obviously funny,
but it occurred to me. I've always thought of Ikea
is kind of a starter brand, like it's the thing
people are drawn to in their first apartments or as
(11:57):
they're embarking on new stages, because it's reliable and stylish
without bringing the bank. It's almost like the signifier that
you're on the road to responsibility. But what's funny is
that I read this, uh the story in the New Yorker,
the one by Lauren Collins. Yeah, and and it's really good.
But one of the many lines that struck me in
it was that she referred to Ikea as the chief
(12:17):
anthropologist of homes, and she mentions how much research the
brand actually compiles to understand and then hook customers at
different stages of life, like they know the ideal size
of modern bathroom storage and what the split should be
between spouses because more and more men have been buying
more and more grooming products reasonally, or how the Ikea
(12:38):
tupperware and they referenced this in the catalogs, how it's
meant to accommodate the half can of tomatoes and an
ounce of Coast Coast recipe you just found, Like it's
really specific. It's say, that's pretty precise. How do they
know I like Coast Coast and they're actually designing for
like every momentous change in your life. Yeah, the amount
of information they've collected is really amazing. I actually have
(12:59):
the eight stages of life they target. I printed it
out here and here the categories. It's babies, toddlers, starting school,
tweens and teens, single slash, starting out, single slash established,
living together slash starting out and living together slash established.
It's crazy just to read these things, you know. So
they're looking at your life stages, and you know the
(13:21):
crib you suddenly have to buy as you plan to
have a baby, or the couch you'll want when you
have your first job, and then all the easy upgrades
from there, so the crib turns into a toddler bed,
the bookshelf you can stack next to the bookshelf when
your partner moves in. But the targeting definitely starts early.
There was this internal memo I saw that said, infant
cots are our ticket to building a lifelong relationship with
(13:44):
our core customers. You know. Um. One of the things
I found fascinating was that all the design actually starts
with the price. What do you mean by that, Well,
if you look at the design briefs, the I sends
around to their team and will be like, we need
a better looking spatula for a buck fifty in gray
and white. But the price I Kea wants for it
is actually in the specifications from the start. And that's
(14:04):
because cost and design their linked from conception. If one
of them isn't there, the product never gets off the ground.
I mean that that's pretty fascinating. What's also interesting to
me is that they're studying and designing for the whole globe,
so not just for one location. Like they figured out
the elements that cut across cultures and how to sell
a bed or a bookshelf that's plain enough but also
(14:26):
stylish enough to appeal the deal seekers in every market.
So you see this even in their catalog. So the
catalog and US might have a Golden retriever on the
couch and they'll photoshop that out if if you know,
if it's for like the Saudi catalog, Well they also
photo shop the women out of the Saudi catalog cut
them a little flak, but put your points absolutely right.
They found a couch that they can hawk across multiple markets,
(14:48):
right right, and that's what keeps, you know, the cost
going lower and lower those economies of scale. Speaking of
across the globe, Bloomberg used to run a Billy bookcase index,
where economists listed the price to the bookcase in various cultures.
And it's pretty fascinating, or was fascinating to look at.
It would help him understand the value of currency in
different markets. But it's so bizarre to me that the
(15:10):
cost was so wildly different between the markets. Like in
the UAE, for example, the billy used to cost about
forty six dollars, and then in Israel it was more
than twice that much. It was at a hundred and
three dollars, which is just crazy. That's crazy. By the way.
One thing I found really funny when I was looking
at this like cross culture stuff, was that people in
England really seemed to hate building the furniture themselves. And
(15:33):
maybe this happens in other countries too, but I found
a number of mom and pop shops that were specifically
dedicated to like building your ikea furniture free. I could
use that. I could use that. All right, We're definitely
gonna talk flat packs and the cult of ike as
billionaire founder. But before we do that, how about we
break for a little quiz? Sounds good. Our guest today
(15:54):
is Grady Hendricks, author of My Best Friends Exorcism, and
also the reason we have him on today's show is
because he's the author of the wonderful book Horror Store,
which looks like a beautifully designed Ikea catalog but takes
place in a totally different setting, the Orsk Superstore in Cleveland.
Welcome to the show, Grady, Thanks for having me here.
(16:15):
So Grady, I've read that you do an insane amount
of research for your books. Like I heard that you
mapped out all the weather for each day for where
My Best Friends Exorcism, so so it was accurate and um.
And then I read that you interviewed a ton of
people at Ikea to learn more about the stories, and
I was curious, how did that inform your writing? You know,
it's actually the reason I wound up calling it worse.
(16:36):
It wasn't just because my publisher was scared we get
sued by idea, but also because everyone I talked to
from my key and probably I talked about it about
a dozen folks who worked there unprompted. They all said
really nice things about Ikea, and that's really rare for
people who work in retail. But you know, as far
as it goes, it's a pretty decent employer. Um. You know,
(16:57):
no one has murdered uh to like protein bars for
the other other employees. No one turned into meat ball
for the cafeteria. They all go home with all their
body parts at the end of the day. And I
think as far as big box retail goes in the US,
that's that's pretty good. Yeah. I do have to ask, though,
having having done this book, are are you banned from
my keas? No? But I sort of self banned myself.
(17:20):
I spent so much time in them while I was
writing it, and then I didn't go in one for
about a year and a half. And I went in
and one in New York to do an interview with
someone right when the book was coming out, and they're
all made out the same, and I suddenly started doing
this real panic reaction, like, oh my god, where am
I Am I in my book? Am I in somewhere room?
I I mean in Florida, I really was disorienting. So um,
(17:43):
I only order i Kea online. Now that's very great.
And what about the idea to design this as a catalog.
It's it's so inventive. Did you did you come up
with that from the starter or was that something you
imposed on it later? No, that was actually Jason, my
editor's idea, and he that was that was his baby
from the beginning in terms of this will look like
an IKEA catalog. And then the nice thing about work
(18:06):
is because it's so small, they actually listen to the
author when you talk about design, and they let you
be involved with that conversation. And so Jason and Andy
read the designer and myself we just started to feed
off of each other. You know, well what if we
had a furniture description beginning to each chapter? Well what
if they change, you know? And then I have written
catalog copy and stuff in the past, so you know
everything in there, right down to the small print on
(18:27):
the order form. I insisted on sort of doing myself,
which was a really poor idea. I'm gonna say I
love Quirk like, I really think that they play so
well with authors and and and so so much attention
goes to all the details. I really love that. So
so it is will will your next project be with
Quirk And if so, what are you working on next? Yeah?
(18:48):
The next book I have coming out from them is UM.
It's called Paperbacks from Hell, and it's actually a nonfiction
book coming out this September. It's about UM, the history
of horror paid for backs in the seventies and eighties.
I think everyone who was a live around them remembers
those really lurid covers of the foil and the embossing
and the die cuts that showed, you know, the girl's
(19:10):
face and then you open it up and it's like, oh,
the beings on the end of the bear and board
like you know it's UM and and those sort of
disappeared in the early nineties and I read those and
write about them a little online just for kicks, and
Jason was like, do you want to do a book
of these? So the result is Paperbacks from Hell. It's
got a ton of art in it, and it really
goes a lot about the artists and who did the covers,
(19:32):
and how this sort of lived and died and why
you should be scared of Nazi leprecons and why not
LEPrecon the Nazis in the first place. I can't wait?
All right, So, so what game are we playing the
day with Grady Mango. We're gonna play a little game
called kitchen good from Ikea or word. The Swedish chef says, okay, well,
if we speak whatever language the Swedish chef does, this
(19:54):
should be easy and we'll give you a word and
you just tell us whether it's an Ikea kitchen good
or something. The Swedish chef says, so are you ready, Grady?
You should know my palms are already sweaty. Okay, I
think you'll do better than you expect. All right, here
we go. Number one elver damn Ikea product or something.
(20:14):
The Swedish chef says, I'm gonna go with Ikea products. Yeah,
one for one beautiful faucet. Al right, okay, maybe maybe
maybe we'll help him out with some some pronunciation as well.
And the next one is Guerndee. You know I'm gonna
go with the Swedish chef. You're absolutely right. I think
(20:42):
I remember this from the Senates Gersh Gerndi, Morndy Burn
burn d if I'm not mistaken right, Okay, two for two.
Number three Baganas. I believe that's an Ikea product for three?
What what? What? What are baganas? They're a fancy nob
for your drawer. Okay, I fancy not free doors two more.
(21:02):
Here we go. Number four, Farney, You know I'm gonna guess,
but I'm going to use the tried tradition of one
for wheel one one way, one the other, and I'm
gonna say sweetish chef. You might recognize it from the
sentence sure to chicken into Farney hug So quotes from
a Muppets movie. Yes, they are all right for the
perfect score, let's go for number five. Bean C, bean C. Okay,
(21:28):
I'm gonna stick with my with my guesting pattern and
go with Ikea. Oh it's the only one you missed.
But that that this was the so de beancy bouncy Burger.
So I'm so good at this. All right? Well, how
has Grady done today? Grady did an amazing four for five,
which is enough to earn him our Grand Prize. Total admiration.
Well done, Grady. Thank you so much for Johnny. We
(21:50):
can't wait to see your next project, Paperbacks from Hell.
But thank you again for writing Horror Store and for
being on Part Time Genius. Thank you for not letting
me embarrass myself too badly. Welcome back to Part Time Genius.
(22:14):
And we were about to talk flat packs, all right,
So do you like putting together? I kea furniture Mango,
so I know there are all these things about the furniture,
like there are some couples therapists who make couples build
a piece of furniture together to work through their communications.
Sounds terrible. I don't think I could do that with anybody,
But I mean, how many lopsided tables and chairs do
you have to make before you realize you're either right
or wrong for somebody. I also like that the furniture
(22:36):
is used in robotics, though, like having a robot watch
humans as symbol and ikea piece in different ways and
then they determine the most efficient way, and that that's
kind of become this common exercise in robotics. Yeah, it's
awesome and uh, and to tell you the truth, I
actually love putting together. I kea furniture because I'm not
super handy, but it reminds me of those snap tight
(22:57):
model kits from when I was a kid, like, you
just snap all these parts in place and voila. It's
just so satisfying. Speak for yourself. I'm not a fan,
but it is funny that you mentioned that, because there's
actually a name for that, and it's called the Ikea effect.
So Harvard Business School has actually done studies on this.
And the weirder part is that you end up with
a bias and I'm quoting here. It says you place
(23:18):
a disproportionately higher value on the Ikea furniture that you
make because your handiwork has gone into it. That's kind
of like those cake mixes from the fifties. You know
about these, right, don't Well, when they used to make
cake mixes, Initially the eggs weren't actually necessary for the
instant cake mixes, but they couldn't get housewives to buy
them because it didn't really feel like cooking. It was
(23:39):
almost like cheating. But when a brand started adding cracking
a few eggs to make the batter, suddenly the product
took off. It kind of like tricked people into feeling
like they were making more of a cake somehow, right, right,
And and that might be part of why we're a
little more reluctant to get rid of their I Kea furniture,
and then you know, it sticks around a little bit
longer than it should because of that that pride of
what they've built. But you know that's not why I
(24:00):
Kia flat packs their furniture. It actually has a great
origin story. Oh I actually know this, but you should
definitely tell it to the listeners. Okay, Well, our our
story goes back to this guy, Gillis Loundgren, and by
the time he joined i Kea, it was already this
bustling regional furniture business. But the furniture was bulky, and
it came pre assembled and it was pretty expensive to ship.
So London goes on to manage the catalog and design
(24:22):
a bunch of furniture later. But in the early nineteen fifties,
he was just trying to transport a leaf shaped table
to a photo shoot. It was clunky and couldn't fit
in his car, and so he took the legs off
to make it fit, and that's when inspiration struck. But
flat pack furniture has existed for way longer than that.
Rye actually, another Swedish designer, would come up with a
flat pack chair a few years before, but it wasn't
(24:44):
all that well known, and this is all part of
the I kea lore now. But according to some versions,
and these are the ones that that I believe, Londgren
had to really lobby the company's founder, Ingvar compre to
change the flat pack and and there are other less
likely tellings where Ingvar was put sishing the table into
a car with Lundgren and they came up with this
idea together. So who knows the exact story, but it
(25:05):
was something along these lines. Yeah, so there's a phrasing company.
The language my family speaks that a story has been
told with meeting Massala, and it means like a story
has been seasoned with salt and spice to make it
more juicy or appealing. We didn't have that phrase in
Alabama for some reason. But I do love meeting Massala.
But we'll talk about Ingvar and his legend in a bit,
because he's definitely a genius but obviously comes with some
(25:27):
issues too. But what's definitely true is that flat pack
change the business prospects completely. So over the years the
company started referring to air as their enemy. And when
you pack things that flat not only are you transferring
the cost of assembly to your buyer, so you know,
so you can lower the price and underbid the competition.
But it basically has all these other advantages and uh,
(25:49):
what what are this? Well, actually, there's this this great
Fast Company piece by John Browley on this and here's
what he points out. All right, So he says, first,
you can keep way more furniture in stock because you
only need you know, a few models, and then you
can keep the rest and volume and back and and
it's also way easier to transport. So i Kea was
shipping ten times as many bookcases or desks or whatever
(26:12):
it was as the competition for basically the same amount
of spend on gas. And this is the point I
would never have figured out. But Brawley said that the
boxy aesthetic that's taken over the globe that's also coming
from the flat pack design, and that's kind of amazing.
And clearly i Kea as genius, as you point out earlier,
is by making these products in bulk and then iterating
on them so they just get cheaper and cheaper. Yeah,
(26:33):
you know the Ikea mugs which are so popular, I mean,
the reason they've lasted is that they have this really
tiny handle and it's just this little circle on the
top of a conical mug. But that ends up being,
you know, what allows them to stack a ton more
of these mugs on top of one another. I mean,
they're just geniuses in reducing the amount of air in
between each of their products. So the thing about Ikea
(26:55):
is there's really so much to cover. But let's talk
just for a little bit about ing Vibe because he's fascinating.
I mean, he was basically an entrepreneur from the time
he was a kid, and by eighteen he'd been given
a little money from his dad, uh mostly for doing
well in school despite his dyslexia, and he turned that
money into a little catalog business that kept growing and growing. Also,
(27:17):
I love that he grew up in Small End, Like
I always thought Small End the kid's babysitting part of
Ikea was just a cute name, but it's a reference
to his hometown. That's true. I saw that as well.
You know, he's kind of a mythic figure at Ikea,
and his farm boy common sense or thrift is a
big part of the company ethos. Like there's this one
story about ingvar looking at a case of geese and
a refrigerator in China and asking, so what happens to
(27:40):
those feathers? Like he spotted that deal and everyone in
the company knows about it, and he lives that way too.
I mean, his homes are all furnished exclusively in Ikea.
He drives this old Volvo and for his ninetieth birthday
he was interviewed and he was supposedly wearing clothes that
he found at a thrift store, which you know, I mean,
he's he's of the richest billionaires in the world. But
(28:02):
as we mentioned in the tax episode way back when,
there's a lot of secrecy at the company, and it's
not without its dark past. But before we get into that,
why don't we pause for quiz? All right, mango, So
our second quiz today, we decided to find a couple
of people who have actually assembled Ikea furniture before. We
(28:26):
didn't have to go very far for this, did we
We place the song wide call out and we walked
a few stuffs from our desk to get to right.
That's right. So we have a few friends from here
at the How Stuff Works Family, Noel Brown and Ben Boland.
They're the host of one of my favorite shows here
at How Stuff Works called Stuff they Don't Want You
to Know. Welcome, guys, Thank you, thanks for having us right.
I have to tell you actually, just this morning I
(28:48):
was listening to your most recent episode on this continuation
of Government plan and on bunkers and like what happens
with the government after either a nuclear attack or something
that may happen that causes mass chaos, And it was awesome, guys,
such a great interview. Tell us a little bit about
that one. Oh sure, yeah, so we interviewed Garrett Graff,
(29:09):
who is a pretty prolific author and a favorite of
ours when it comes to credible investigations into stuff They'll
want you to know. It turns out, then the United States,
for decades, the US government has spent quite a bit
of financial effort, quite a bit of blood, sweat and tears,
(29:32):
in creating top secret bunkers that will allow not everyone
but the people they deem important to the continuation of
the U. S Government to survive anything from a widespread
plague to an act of God to a nuclear disaster.
I was sadly absent for this episode, so I look
forward to consuming it just like you, guys. Did and
(29:52):
it sounds awesome. Yeah. It spoiler. The bunkers are filled
with ire, right, Yeah, there is a several of the
bunkers are produced by Ikeas so they can be easily
disassembled and reassembled like those little kind of pre made
rooms that you see in the showroom, you know, like
the double decker bunk beds with the desk underneath. There
was another episode that I love from you guys recently
(30:14):
where you interviewed actually the founder of of How Stuff Works,
Marshall Brain, and it was about life on Mars. You know,
something we don't really think about it. After the efforts
to get to Mars. There's so much talk about like
how do we get to Mars, and then there's not
as much thought from a lot of people about like, okay,
we're here, now, how the heck do we actually live here?
You know. We tried to caveat that one as much
as possible as being a thought experiment, you know. So
(30:37):
we got a lot of a little bit of flak,
people saying we were kind of like promoting communism because
a lot of the ideas of you know, how do
we start a society from scratch? You end up with
some little nuggets of kind of communism kind of thought
in there, but we we tried to look at both sides,
and Marshall was a very gracious guest and a very
interesting intelligent guy. Was a lot of fun to talk
to him about this crazy stuff, and so yeah, he is.
(31:00):
He's also wants us to make sure every time we
mentioned that episode to let people know that you can
go to Marshall brain dot com and you can write
to him directly with any prayers or feedback. All right, well,
something almost as heavy as the continuation of government plan
and bunkers. We're going to play a quiz here, Mango,
(31:20):
What what quiz are we putting these guys up to?
We're playing a little game called Boys of Ikea. All
As it turns out, I'm a proud owner of both
a mom, a schmool and some yarn. So, Mango, this
is the second Ikea product squiz we're doing today. I know,
but they're so fun, that's true. Well, as you might know,
Ikea has different naming schemes for their furniture, so carpets
(31:43):
are often Danish place names, or the lighting might be
chemistry terms. But today we're quizzing you on furniture that's
named after common boys names. Okay, so this is what
we're gonna do. We're gonna show you a picture of
a piece of furniture and then we'll give you a clue,
and you just have to tell us the boy's name. Okay,
you got this. This is what we're gonna do. Mango
(32:04):
has these very helpful pictures here. I know, just looking
at that chair you immediately away. But we have to
give clues for the listeners. That's right, could that possibly
be a giveaway? And uh? And because you're competing against
each other, and because we don't have busters, we're gonna
ask you to either move or kaka when you know
the answer. So, uh, can we do either one? Okay? Okay,
(32:28):
So would you like to move? Uh? Sure, I'll take
them more. Would I can see you? Eba? No, no
move Benelka. Okay, here we go. All right, you guys
ready to play. Okay, let's show them picture number one,
number one. Okay, here we go. This folding bar stool
with back rest doubles as the name of the first
(32:50):
African American character from the Peanuts name that I kea
boy panic? I don't know? Okay, chairs name with the Roosevelt,
Oh Franklin. Yes, one to nothing. Here we go. Question
question number two. Yeah, let's let's let's work on the
(33:11):
okay here all right. Although this dining chair was retired,
the tennis player who shares its name just won his
eighth Wimbledon and shows no signs of slowing down. Can
you name that? I kea boy? His last name is Federer?
Al right, Ben Kevin. I was thinking, I think no
(33:39):
one gets that point by default. Roger. There we go. Yeah, alright,
funny that we were on the same wave like that.
Here we go, all right. Question number three. These stackable
chairs were easy to move thanks to the hole in
the back rest. The furniture also shares its name with
(34:01):
the patriarch of the Munster family on television. All right,
who is it? Yes, Arman Munster? Well done, I think
we're okay, it's two to one, nol Is that right? Okay?
Number four. This leather and steel bar stool shares its
name with a Caesar, the one who was kidnapped by
pirates and then demanded that they up there ransom because
(34:24):
he was worth much more than what they were asking. Alright,
I'll take the big Okay, let's hear it. It's gonna
be wrong though, Julius. Yeah, correct yourself, all right, the
big tidebreaker. Here a number five feeling it. Here's the
here's the photo. Okay, so that's that's that's it looks
the same as number one and three. This is such
(34:45):
a great, such great audio pictures. All right, here we go.
This modern folding chair shares its first name with an
American writer. After he wrote, the raven children would run
up to him on the street, let me finish the question,
and then did they? Let's see, after he wrote, the
raven children would run up to him in the street,
(35:07):
flapping their wings and calling nevermore. Let's let you guys
on the count of three say it together, one to three, Edgar,
So what does that mean? We we'll give him a
time because we don't want to start an office fight.
We're gonna give them each of five dollar gift card
to Ikea, the cheapest gift card you can get to Ikea.
(35:30):
Oh my gosh, no, no, we're going to the cafeteria.
Is enough for their Swedish meat at meat balls and
that's a lot of meatballs. Well, I hope everyone well listening.
We'll check out stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
thanks so much for joining. Thank you. So I don't
(35:57):
want to get too deep into this, but we were
going to talk a little bit about ing bars darker history. Right. So,
the company definitely makes use of tax shelters, and Ikea
itself is registered as a nonprofit, where for a company
that does thirty billion dollars or more in sales, there's
not a lot of nonprofit work to show. But I
think the thing that really shocked me is that ng
Bar had been part of a far right Swedish party
(36:19):
when he was younger. He was a fan of this
fascist per eng Doll and at first it sounded to
the press pretty superficial, and then it became clear he'd
done some heavy recruiting for the party and had a
police file. Anyway, he's apologized for it, and he's called
it the silly phase in his life and it's something
he regrets. But he only does interviews with journalists he
(36:39):
vets now and he keeps a really tight control over
the narrative. But all that's complicated by the fact that
there's also been some concern that the company is really
insular and that upper management is almost all from small land. Supposedly,
you can't make it up in the company if you
don't come from that region. Well, on the other hand,
once those comments came out, the company did make a
big effort to diversify. Yeah, and by all accounts they
(37:02):
have and the workers have really high satisfaction ratings, like
they get great gifts at the holidays, and um I
KEA used to use this m I T living wage
calculator and they did that so that they could make
sure employees and different regions all got paid well or
well enough to live. And now they're really trying to
be a force for environmental good too. Yeah. I mean,
there's there's a lot packed in there. And there this
(37:23):
book from a former employee that I guess got a
lot of press, and it talks about ing var with pride,
but also describes the end fighting that goes on to
please him, which you know, supposedly he stirs that up.
But whatever else, he's still this pretty beloved figure in Sweden.
But before we go, let's break from this topic and
talk a little bit about one of the things I
think is just genius, and that's how the store flows.
(37:44):
I mean, it kind of reminds me of the you know,
the gentle way of grocery store guides you along. And
how's that? Well, you know how grocery stores try to
lead you counterclockwise, and and that's because most people are
right handed, which I know that sounds like fake marketing advice,
but because those people are closer to the shelves with
their right hand, there's actually a seven or eight percent
increase in sales when stores switched to that direction. Yeah.
(38:07):
I remember reading that if you walk the store in
the opposite direction, you'll actually spend less. And even though
I know that, like I can't fight the current, I
always have to go with the flood. I get it,
I get it, and I key has even more like that.
The whole store is intended to be this lazy river
that pulls you along. And every fifty feet or so,
there's a curve in the path because there's always supposed
(38:29):
to be something enticing hiding right around the corner, you know.
In fact, according to Lauren Collins piece, she says, any
long stretch that doesn't make a turn is referred to
as an audubon, which is code for, as she says,
a big boring mistake. I love that so Um, I
actually know what you mean. Like, when I've been in
the stores, it really does feel like a giant maze
(38:49):
moving in one direction, and it's kind of all pulling
you towards the register. I'm not sure if you remember this,
but Jess Hollinger did this piece for a Metal Last
some years ago. I do remember that, Yeah, yeah, And
and she talked to a bunch of Akia employees and
one of the things she discovered was that there are
actually all these hidden shortcuts in every idea, Like there
are unmarked doors that will take you upstairs or downstairs,
or little entrances between a bedroom department that will take
(39:12):
you to the carpet section and you can skip through
four or five sections. It's it actually feels to me
like one of those pipes and Super Mario Brothers that
lets you skip to the end of a level or something.
But I've got to tell you, the last time I
got stuck in Ikea for way too long, I started
scouting for the secret passageways and using them, and it
made my trip so much more fun. Way you can
do this that nobody tried to stop you from doing that. Yeah,
(39:34):
that's the best part. I mean, those passageways are mostly
there to be helpful for workers, but they're also there
in case of emergencies. And as long as the door
doesn't say employees only, Ikia won't really hassle you about
poking around. I mean, this is the same store that
lets customers in China sleep on their beds for hours. Actually,
speaking of those, I love those photos of people test driving,
(39:55):
you know, the merchandise there. The other thing, an employee
to the Metal Floss was that the stores will actually
change the pathways every once in a while, So maybe
that the hide and Sea enthusiasts you've talked about in
the beginning don't get too familiar with. It's also interesting
how much business Ikea doesn't impulse buys, Like once you're
past the furniture and all the things you came to buy,
(40:15):
the last part of the i Kea store is actually
called the open the Wallets section, and that's where all
the things you need but would never come to an
i Kea specifically for they're waiting for you right there.
It could be anything from a plastic picnic plate to
a two dollar vase, but it's at such steep discounts
that you just can't resist. Well, that's the magic of
(40:36):
the bullah bullah, that's right. I don't know if you
said this. For like, every single article I read about
I can't mentioned how they have this special way of
stacking a hundred different items into a bin just to
accentuate how affordable all this stuff is. That and the
fact that they always keep like shopping bags every fifty
feet so you never have an excuse not to pick
up more stuff, Well then it clearly works. I mean,
on the one hand, I TA feels so folksy, and
(40:57):
yet the brand is so big it's just izzy. I mean,
like people always mentioned how one out of every ten
Europeans was conceived on an Ikea bed. Yeah, that's such
a crazy stat and I actually read a funny line
in The Atlantic about it. They called Ikea beds the
literal cradle of humanity. But you also hear that sad
a lot about how i Kea uses one percent of
the world's would to make its furniture. Yeah, I mean,
(41:20):
that's that's right. But the thing that really brought it
home for me was this line from the New Yorker
piece let me let me just read it here. It says, uh,
when Ikia stopped selling incandescent lightbulbs. Last year, six hundred
and twenty six million people became environmentalists. I mean it's
just stunning. Yeah, it's crazy how big they are. But um,
speaking of stunning, why don't we do a little fact
off while we're while we're on the subject, all right,
(41:42):
m okay, here's one to kick it off. So in
the Netherlands, Ikea had to stop offering a one euro
breakfast on weekends because the country's road couldn't accommodate the traffic.
That's insane. So here's something I didn't realize about the
(42:06):
IKEA catalog is c G I now, no way. Yeah.
Not only is the computer generated catalog cheaper for the company,
but it makes it easier to tweak the catalog for
different markets. That's impressive. All right, here's the crazy thing
I learned. So we pronounced Ikea wrong. In America, we
call it i Kea, but it's actually e ka. So
we talked a little about the naming system in the
(42:28):
quiz earlier. But the reason all the bookcases are boys
names or professions or the betting is all named for
flowers and plants. It's because ing bar is dyslexic. It
was an easier taxonomy than numbers for him to keep
track of everything. All I kind of love that. Al Right,
here's something that's totally bonkers. So in nineteen seventy three,
the company was growing so fast it accidentally opened an
(42:49):
Ikea and the wrong Town in Germany. Apparently it was
supposed to go up in constands, but it went up
in Kobe Lens instead. I mean, anybody can make that
a thing, though. Yeah, even though that fact makes no
sense to me, I I love it. So I'm gonna
let you walk away with the belt this week. And
for those of you listening at home, don't forget to
(43:10):
write us at part Time Genius at how stuff Works
dot com and please send in your favorite meatball and
furniture facts. A lot of you are gonna walk away
with t shirts. Thank you so much for listening. Okay,
(43:34):
thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy
sound thing. Garry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
(43:57):
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
We forget Jason? Jason who
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