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IKEA and the power of the brown box

A company that views packaging as part of the product had 957 million store visits and $38.8 billion Euro retail sales in 2018, so they must be doing something right.

IKEA
IKEA

IKEA, or the “blue box on the potato field” as it’s sometimes referred to according to Allan Dickner, Manager of Packaging Developmentat IKEAof Sweden, is often first physically introduced to customers via a brown box. So, how that brown box looks when carried out of the store, or the condition it arrives in when shipped, is an important part of IKEA’s brand building.

Dickner said that in some countries IKEA has an online presence before physical stores are opened, and they would like to continue to grow their online presence. Shopping in-store is still the primary method, however, with 75% of customers carrying home their purchases and only 25% using delivery.

Speaking during day two of the ISTA European Packaging Symposium in Amsterdam today, Dickner said that IKEA produces four billion packages each year, using 900,000 tons of packaging material, 92% of which is fiber-based. (It also ships 1,000 tons of its iconic Swedish meatballs each week, if you ever wondered.)

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