Ingvar Kamprad
May 24, 2025 - 4:29 pm
Ingvar Kamprad established IKEA which is an international trader of home furnishing goods. He is also the chairman of a charitable organization named Stichting INGKA Foundation. Kamprad is one of the world’s most successful industrialist and richest people. He is known for his huge estates and properties which he possessed all over Europe. He has been ranked on
the list of the richest people in the world for several years by Forbes.
Kamprad was born on 30th March, 1926 and grew up in a small farm named Elmtaryd near Agunnaryd in Sweden. In the early days of his life, he started a business of purchasing matchboxes from the wholesale dealers and sealing them to the neighbors at a profit. He owned a huge potential and soon he expanded the business by including seeds, pens, pencils, Christmas decorations and fish. When Kamprad turned 17 years of age, his father gave him some money as a gift for his achievements in the school. He used that money in starting his business named IKEA. He sold a number of household stuff like photo frames, nylon
stockings, pens, wallets and jewelry under his firm’s name.
In the year 1945, which is 2 years after he started IKEA, Kamprad started publicity for his business in the local papers. He used milk trucks for delivering his merchandise which could deliver the goods not only at homes but also to the local train stations. In 1947, he spread out his business by including furniture which was manufactured by the local people. This was a huge turn in IKEA which overtook all the other products of the firm making the furniture business first and foremost product.
He started a furniture showroom in 1953 so that the customers can see and judge the furniture before they purchase any of them. In 1955, IKEA started creating its own furniture designs due to the pressure of growing competition. Then, the company started creating furniture which the customers could assemble. This category of furniture was storage and price friendly for customers as well as for IKEA as they saved a lot of money in shipping and storage.
In 1965, Kamprad started his first warehouse for retail customers at Stockholm in a 45,800 square feet area. He started providing a large range of products to his customers. Within next twenty years, he grew his stores to almost all the countries around the globe and started 114 stores in 25 countries.
Kamprad was involved in pro-Nazi activities and wrote letters to his employees admitting his mistakes.
