????Ikea is the retailer for the 99%.
????Or at least that's the point Anders Dahlvig, the former CEO of the Swedish furniture and home goods giant, is trying to make in The Ikea Edge. Early on in the book he tells the reader, "Like any business, Ikea strove for professionalism and profits. But this was never an end in itself. The company has a social ambition that feels genuine: to create a better everyday life for people."
????In these days of Occupy Wall Street, it's easy to scoff at that kind of message from a big company. But by the end of the book, it's hard not to believe him. In part that's because the company's objective isn't that grandiose: to improve ordinary people's lives by giving them the option of decent quality furniture at low prices. And most of us, unless you're part of the 1%, have experienced this part of the Ikea promise firsthand.
????Much of The Ikea Edge is spent explaining how the company manages to offer ridiculously low prices that make it impossible to leave the store without a lengthy receipt. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have driven home from Ikea with a bag of 100 tea lights not because I have an extensive candle collection -- I don't -- but simply because the price tag was $3.99. (Each one is less than 4 cents!)
