IKEA : Thursday

 IKEA did not start as a big global company. It began in 1943 in rural Sweden. A teenager, Ingvar Kamprad, started a small business selling pens, wallets, and simple products from his bicycle. At the time, it was just a small example of entrepreneurship. Nobody imagined this simple idea would later change how people around the world buy furniture.

The big turning point came when IKEA discovered something surprising: many people were happy to build furniture themselves if the price was lower. This idea created the famous flat-pack system. Instead of selling ready-made furniture, IKEA packed products into small, easy-to-carry boxes. Customers would take them home and do the assembly themselves. At first, some people thought this was inconvenient, but it quickly became a successful innovation because it reduced costs and made transport easier.

IKEA also sells more than furniture—it sells a lifestyle. When you walk into a showroom, you don’t just see products on shelves. Instead, you walk through rooms that look like real homes. Everything is designed to feel modern, simple, and affordable. You don’t just look at a sofa or a table—you imagine how your own home could look. This experience makes shopping more personal.

Behind the company, IKEA works with impressive efficiency. It carefully controls its logistics, including transport, storage, and production in many different countries. Every product is designed not only to look good, but also to be easy to move, cheap to produce, and simple to build. However, many customers still struggle when they follow the instructions, which are sometimes difficult to understand.

At the same time, IKEA wants to show that it cares about the planet. The company invests in renewable materials and supports sustainability. It tries to reduce waste and create products that can be reused or recycled. However, some critics question this idea. They ask: can a company really be environmentally friendly if it produces and sells millions of products every year?

Even so, IKEA continues to grow and remain popular. Its success comes from combining low prices, practical design, and minimalism—a style that focuses on simplicity and clean spaces. IKEA has changed the way people think about furniture and home design.

In the end, IKEA is more than just a store. It is a global idea about how people live, decorate, and organise their homes. From a small bicycle business to an international company, IKEA shows how one simple idea can grow into something that affects millions of people’s lives.

📘 2. VOCABULARY

  1. flat-pack — organising transport, storage, and delivery
  2. assembly — a new idea or way of doing something
  3. innovation — furniture sold in parts that you build yourself
  4. showroom — putting parts together to make something
  5. efficiency — a place where products are shown like a real home
  6. logistics — doing things well without wasting time or money
  7. struggle — using resources carefully for the future
  8. sustainability — trying hard to do something difficult
  9. minimalism — to make less 
  10. reduce — a simple style with few things

 SYNONYM MATCH

  1. flat-pack — simple style
  2. assembly — new idea
  3. innovation — putting together
  4. showroom — working well without waste
  5. efficiency — place to see products
  6. logistics — organisation of transport and delivery
  7. reduce — difficulty
  8. struggle — decrease
  9. sustainability — environmental care
  10. minimalism — furniture in parts  

3. “CUSTOMER FROM HELL” SERVICE TRAINING  

One student = extremely difficult customer.

They must:

  • complain and be very negative and pessimistic about these sitations.

Employee must:

  • calm them
  • find solution
  • keep IKEA image positive
Student 1: Opening line for client , add more complaints to this scenario. 
Student 2: Stay helpful but calm and professional. Show us how you resolve conflictive situations. 
  • The Wobbly Table Disaster: “This table is completely useless—it wobbles like crazy and I can’t even put a glass on it without it tipping!”
  • The Delivery Meltdown: “Your delivery service is a joke—I’ve been waiting forever and no one seems to know where my order is!”
  • The Missing Parts Panic: “Are you serious right now? Half the parts are missing—how am I supposed to use this?”
  • The Refund Demander: “This is unacceptable—I want a full refund right now because this product is a total waste of money!”

    • 4. UNIQUE BRANDS

    These products,brands and businesses became successful because they were unique in their field and offered somethig very original. Talk about how these products stand out and what makes them unique and successful:

    1. Crocs

    2. Balenciaga

    3. Dr. Martins

    4. Kombucha 

    5. Liquid Death 

    6.La PollerĂ­a de Barcelona

    7. Caganer Shop

    5. PRESS CONFERENCE: IKEA CRISIS 

    Setup:

    Breaking news: IKEA is accused of environmental damage. It turns out the wooden material they use for their furniture was taken from the Amazon, especially in Tres Fonteras, which is the part of the Amazon that is shared between  Brazil, Peru and Colombian . This is illegal logging. Ikea claims that they had hired a third party in South America, and were not aware that they were cutting down trees in forbidden parts of the Amazon rainforest. 

      Roles:

      • IKEA spokesperson
      • journalists (aggressive questioning)
      • activist
      • confused customer

      6. Fika culture 

      Fika culture is a Swedish tradition in Sweden that is all about taking a break from daily life to enjoy coffee and something sweet, usually pastries like cinnamon buns, while spending time with others or simply relaxing on your own. It is not just a coffee break but a way of slowing down, connecting with people, and valuing balance between work and rest, and it is often a regular part of both workdays and social life in Sweden. 

      1.How might your day feel different if you took a regular pause just to relax and talk with others?

      2. Why do you think slowing down like this is important in modern life?

      3. Do you have something similar in your culture?

        7. Fill in the blanks: 

          1. The owner of Ikea started his life selling matchboxes. Eventually he became a very successful entrepreneur. He went from                                         .

          2. His success came after many years of hard work. It was not an                           successs.
          3. Ikea, Spotify, H&M and Volvo are the most famous and well recognized brands from Sweden. They     are  Sweden ́s                           companies.
          4.  If you think the products in Ikea are great and the price is affordable, then it is a                    .
          5. The first time you bought something from Ikea, you really hated the fact that you must assemble the furniture yourself. But eventually, you began to like it. It                                          .
          6. In Catalonia, Ikea stores are located in Badalona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sabadell, Sant Pere de Ribes, Girona, and Lleida. How many Ikea stores are there in Catalonia ?
          7.The first Ikea store was built in Almult, Sweden in 1958.That store in Almult is Ikea´s                 store.
          8. Kave Home was founded in Sils, a town in Girona. It is a furniture business that is growing quickly and has great potential in the future . Sostrene Grene is another company from Denmark with a similar profile . They are considered to be                                           businesses.
          9. If they will have a big event next year because they are opening a new Ikea in Barcelona, then a company´s opening event is called an ?
          10. If your friend moves into or buys a new apparment and invites you to their house party to celebrate, this is called a                              party.
          11. If you are not a fan of Ikea, then Ikea is not your                                          .
          12. If you are really into Ikea and with a passion, then you are a                              Ikea fan.
          13. All your friends really love going to Ikea and think it is a  great exeprience. However, when you went, you thought that it was not as amazing as they said it would be. So, for you, going to Ikea is
                                                  .
          14. Your youngest cousin is about to graduate from University and got a job working for Ikea. However, she is not getting paid, as this is part of her university education. She will be                             at Ikea.
          15. After three months,they decided to hire her full time. However, she was disappointed to find out that the salary is very low. According to her , she is paid                            .
          16. She asks you for advice. You tell her to take the job and after 6 months to ask for an increase in her salary. How can you say salary increase in one word?
          17. Because she works for Ikea, she can buy products for much cheaper than other people. She always gets                           .
          18. You bought something from Ikea and then changed your mind and want to return the product. 
          The assistant said you could only return the product if you still have the                           .
          19. Ingvar Kamprad is the founder of IKEA. The name of his company uses the first letter of his first name and the first letter of his late name. The letter I and the letter K are his                              .
          20.If a company only exists online but they decide to hold an event and rent a space for a few weeks, where they will temporarily have a physical presence, then it is called a                             shop.
          21. A family run business where the owners and the clients know each other personally is a  
                                          shop.
          22. A factory that exploits their employees by overworking and underpaying them and often violates their labor rights  is called a                             shop. 
          23. If you decide not to buy products from companies that uses this kind of work methods, then you are                                the company. 
          24. If you really hate these kind of companies, what are some other words for that ?
          25. Many of the employees in these places work there illegally without proper documents. They are paid  (en negro )                            .
          26. What is the activity of looking into shop windows without wanting to buy anything ?

          8. Sweden : Choose from this list something that fascinates you about Sweden and tell us why:

          1.  In Sweden, there is a law called Allemansrätten that allows people to roam, camp, and explore nature freely, even on private land as long as they respect it.
          2. Above the Arctic Circle, Sweden experiences extreme light changes, with midnight sun in summer and almost complete darkness in winter, especially in places like Kiruna.
          3. The city of Kiruna is being physically moved , house by house, because mining activity is causing the ground beneath it to become unstable.
          4. Sweden is nearly cashless, with many places refusing physical money and relying instead on digital payments.
          5. Every winter, the famous Icehotel is rebuilt entirely from ice and snow, only to melt again in spring.
          6. The tradition of Fika is an important daily ritual where people pause work to socialize over coffee.
          7. Sweden is so efficient at recycling that it imports waste from other countries to use as a source of energy.
          8. Swedish parents benefit from around 480 days of paid parental leave per child, making it one of the most generous systems in the world.
          9. Despite its small size, Sweden has had a huge global music impact through artists like ABBA,  Ace of Base, Roxette, Avicii, The Hives, etc...
          10. The Stockholm Archipelago contains around 30,000 islands, many of which are small, remote, and untouched by development

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