E-Mail This Article to a Friend Don’t get the wrong IKEA, continued

In spite of grassroots opposition to both, comparisons between IKEA and that other massively successfully global retailer, Wal-Mart, are unfounded. IKEA is privately owned by a Dutch company, with only 25 stores in the US and a flat corporate structure, so it is not subject to market hysteria or stockholder whimsy. So while Wal-Mart scrambles to make its health-care plan affordable to its associates, even IKEA’s part-time "coworkers" receive full medical benefits, not to mention the chance to buy $2 hot lunches in the staff cafeteria.

Then there’s IKEA’s concern with the environment. For the Stoughton store, the company took sophisticated measures to preserve the surrounding wetlands. Instead of paving a windblown parking lot, it propped the entire store on stilts and put a large percentage of the parking underneath. To prevent massive jams along Stockwell Drive, IKEA agreed to construct an additional road, called Ikea Way, which will reroute additional traffic to Turnpike Road. And according to Briel, the building sets a new standard of environmental friendliness for the company, by launching extensive recycling programs and planting 37,000 square feet of greenery on the roof to cut down on rain runoff and produce oxygen.

But won’t such a big store, combined with decades of pent-up demand, simply blow the little fish out of the water? Not necessarily, explains Michael Levy, a professor or marketing at Babson College.

"IKEA will make Route 24 more of a destination for furniture. People are drawn to a core of stores in the area — like an auto mile or an antique mall. Does that mean all furniture stores will benefit? No. Some stores on the weak side today will become less competitive. But IKEA’s merchandise is unique. They’re providing a value to consumers that is otherwise unavailable. For others, it’s tough luck."

BIG BOX UTOPIA

I enjoy walking through the store in my own way, bass-ackwards, with no particular product in mind, nursing a cup of rich European coffee, which I crave only slightly less than the chicken-breast entrée. When my tour ends, I decide that I still like IKEA, and not just because it seems to be such a "responsible" company. After all, my bedroom suite is all blond-wood IKEA, and I can’t dislike what I sleep on or sit in, can I?

Even so, something still chafes. IKEA is almost too perfect, the platonic form of big box, if you will, committed to making me happy even if I lack that desire myself. The company’s size, too, is inescapable. Regardless of IKEA’s green credentials and partnerships with Greenpeace, UNICEF, and others, no amount of sustainable development can prevent entire forests from being felled to make next year’s desks and bedframes, especially as the company gears up for a massive global expansion. That much of the product seems disposable, and is marketed as such, is even worse.

Finally, most eerily, who in America would want to be lumped in with the "many people"? But it doesn’t matter. Even Superman wouldn’t be able to stop this Swedish invasion.

Chris Wangler can be reached at chriswangler@yahoo.com.