IKEA is WAR

I guess, I don't need to explain, what IKEA is, since it is the biggest furniture shop ON THE WORLD.

Some sad/bad facts:
Ikea uses around 200 million trees per year for their furniture. There is high suspicion on Ikea getting 70 millions of those illegal from the protected syberian forests of russia. They buy them from chinese buisnessmen, that sneak over the border, illegally chop down the trees and sellt them to Ikea. Making Ikea take part in destroying one of the most important forests, the Taiga forest.
Same goes with Swedwood from the republic of Karelia.

Ikea is accused to discrimminate black and female workers.

Ikea is usually choosing it's supporting companies by price and not ethic, resulting in furniture being produced by child labour.
There had even been the case, that back when the DDR (East Germany) had still excisted, that IKEA actually had a contract with the goverment, that the furniture was produced by the prisoners of the country. Just in case you don't know, you could get into prison for saying a bad word about the goverment, for owning things from the west or for trying to escape the country. Inside those prisons were rarely any persons we would today consider a criminal. But they still had to massproduce furniture for Ikea.

A new build Ikea market usually makes the city centers die, many shops will close down, because the shops that are arround a Ikea shop are usually very well-liked (some towns try to work against that by trying to set the Ikea shops as close to the city centers as possible, for example the german city Essen).

Ikea tends to use dangerous or forbidden ressources for their products. Furnitures in Germany had been tested positive on the highly poisonus Formaldehyde. And Greenpeace had been able to prove, that some of the oil used in Ikea products had been made on spaces in Malaysia and Indonesia that had been cleared from jungle (which had been protected before that).

The central of Ikea is officially a beneficence foundation, thus allowing them to pay far less taxes then other companies. But instead of using all their money for beneficence, they calculate and pay the Ikea company with it. A lot of critics and other companies complain about this behaviour, the founder of Ikea just stated that he wants to save money and that this way was one way to do that.


Some interesting/funny facts:
General facts first :3
The Ikea restaurants belong to the Top 10 fast food restaurants woldwide, together with Mc Donalds, Burger King, Subway and KFC.

It's main sales are from Europe with 79 %, America makes 14% and 7% come from Russia, Asia and Australia. Africa as well as North and Southpole are the only continents without a Ikea shop. And America has only shops in the north (USA and Canada), so it might maybe at least count half.
The countries with the most sale (in comparison to all sales, not to country size or population) are Germany (more about this later) , USA (11 %), France (10 %), Italy (7 %) and Schweden (6 %).

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Well, there are five countries on this picture. All of them for a reason.
Sweden is probably the most obvious, since it is the origin country of Ikea. That and I also like the fact, that Ikea in Sweden actually even massproduces houses (even though those have been highly critized for having a horrible quality and bad contracts that get forced upon the buyer).

But what are Germany, Russia, Japan and Netherland doing on the pic?
Well, Germany is so big on that picture for a reason. Ikea has 334 shops worldwide at the moment.
And 46 of those are only in Germany (and they build more and more), making that average sized country the place with the most shops worldwide. Germany alone makes 15% of Ikeas sales, being around 3,6 billion euros. Germany also has some of the biggest Ikea shops worldwide (biggest exhibition space in Düsseldorf, with over 7.500 m², biggest shop in general [taking all floors in account] in Berlin with 43.000 m² [only topped by the Stockholm shop with 55.200 m²]). The advertisment of Ikea belongs to the best known and most liked in Germany and germans actually wait for christmas to be over to see the well liked "Knut" advertisment which is send every year around new year: Video is from Austria, but Germany gets the same, just with a different internet adress at the end
There are even german musicians that make music about Ikea like "Mittsommernacht bei Ikea" from the A Capella Group "Wise Guys" (Mittsommernachtsverkauf is the name for the summer sales of Ikea in Germany).

Well, the next big character is Russia.
Right now Russia "only" has eight Ikea shops. But 10 are right now in build and - considering the size of Russia and the reception of the furniture till now, Russia might become one of the most important countries for Ikea. Right now it is the NO. 1 spot for building new Ikea shops, since there is lot of money to get and lot of space to build on. Also, the fact that Russia is very fond of the Mega-Malls (entertainment and shopping in one) is a positive sign, there are already three such Mega-Malls, many more will probably come in the near future.

Well, you might recognize, that Japan is on the picture. If you hadn't realized it yet: Yes, that person down there is Japan.
And no, he isn't hiding.
Japan is a country that is very, VERY hard for Ikea to conquer, actually.
Ikea had build three markets in Japan around 1974, but the opening of the first was such a desaster, that all shops disappeared again. The japanese people disliked the casual behaviour of the shop clerks (which actually is a positive thing for most europeans and americans) and also... They were too small for the furniture.
Even though japanese people are growing fast with each generation, ever since most families own chairs, japanese people are still very small in comparison to european and american people. So the furniture was too big and thus - obviously - unwanted.
Ikea tried it again in April 2006 near Tokyo with smaller furniture and polite shop clerks. And the japanese people liked it. There are now three more shops in Osaka, Kobe and Yokohama. And if the responds stay positive, then maybe there will be more. But most japanese haven't ever heard from Ikea and many are also not interested in the style of the furniture. So Ikea might never become as popular here as somewhere else.

And finally Netherland...
Actually, I found this out by surprise, so I wonder how many others might even know this xD
Well, Netherland is obviously fresh out of the shower. Even asks where HIS wardrobe is. So maybe some of you already realized: This is not Swedens home, but that of Netherland.
Ikeas main central is in the Netherlands, more precisely in Leiden. So despite being a swedish company, it is actually more dutch, if taken into account where the main central is