Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…Totally. Then this is tragic but ends up being great for the company. Five years later, this beautifully-designed, Guggenheim museum-inspired store in 1971 night, the neon IKEA sign on top of the building catches fire and the building burns down. I don’t know if it totally burns down, but it’s a major, major damage. I believe the insurance claim resulting from this was at the time the largest insurance claim in Swedish national history. But I think this is really part of the culture of IKEA, the company, and certainly Ingvar’s mindset, is every challenge is an opportunity. When they reopen the store a year later, it’s got the full customer self-service checkout that you know of IKEA today where, yes there are co-workers there helping you check out, but like you’re wheeling the stuff up, you’re scanning the stuff you’re putting it through. It’s got more capacity for more and larger flat-packed items in the warehouse. This is really the beginning of the end of the mail order business here. It still exists obviously for a long time, but the share of the business that is mail order versus cash-and-carry in the stores goes way, way, way down. Two, they add a children’s playroom at the front of the store with a ball pit for kids to be entertained while your parents shop, because Lord knows how on earth are you going to do your IKEA shopping with your crazy little kiddos running around. Which is also a genius way to prolong time in store. You’re just going to buy more stuff if your kids are looked after. I will say the Småland at the Seattle store, the idea is a little bit better than the execution. It was a two-hour wait once you get there to get your kid into the Småland. They only allowed five kids at a time. It was this odd, I was all built up for, oh Småland’s going to be this amazing thing. I suspect this is something that, a different era when we were growing up, like things worked a little better and you can’t get away with these days.…

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