Habitat Case Study

Habitat Case Study

Who?

Habitat Retail is a retailer of household furnishings in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and has franchised outlets in other countries. Founded in 1964 by Terence Conran, it was sold by the IKANO Group, owned by the Kamprad family (IKEA man!), in December 2009 to Hilco, a restructuring specialist. On 24 June 2011 all but three UK Habitat stores were put into administration in a deal to sell the indebted furniture chain, with the brand and the three London stores sold to Home Retail Group.

Successful?

(Skeleton of these are from Wiki so don’t use direct! Ha)

To begin with yes, but now- NO.

Terence Conran founded the company in London in 1964, opening his own store to market his Summa range of furniture.^[2] The first Habitat store was opened in Fulham Road in Chelsea^[3] by Conran, his then wife Caroline, Philip Pollock and the model Pagan Taylor.^[4] This store became the Habitat template, with its quarry tiled floor, whitewashed brick walls, white-painted wooden-slatted ceilings and spotlights creating a feeling of space and focusing attention on the product.^[4]

Conran has said the main reason for the shop's initial success was that Habitat was one of the few places that sold cheap pasta storage jars just as the market for dried pasta took off in the UK.^[3]

“We produced our first range of domestic furniture, because up until then most of the furniture we made was for contracts, so we produced our first range which was packed flat for people to assemble themselves. When we opened the shop we had an enormously good reaction. What I was trying to do was sell inexpensive furniture and you need space to do it.” http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/lifestyle/cityliving/homestyle//tm_headline=habi-birthday&method=full&objectid=14234607&siteid=50002-name_page.html

For those who wanted homes as sharp as their clothes, the store soon became the place to be. Customers could choose their own products without having to ask a shop assistant, and with its whitewashed brick walls, quarry tiled floors and airy full-height ceiling, it developed a reputation cooler than Carnaby Street. … "Shopping for furniture meant having to trawl round an endless selection of specialist stores selling insipid and old-fashioned goods. "Imagine the explosion that was Habitat, with its riot of colour and culture from around the world." http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/lifestyle/cityliving/homestyle//tm_headline=habi-birthday&method=full&objectid=14234607&siteid=50002-name_page.html

Our best-known designer, Conran revolutionised the look of our homes and our dining-out habits, helping to stimulate the evolution of the country's tastes. "People can only buy what they're offered," he said, spreading his populist message that good design is healthy as well as an inspiration and a delight. "The evolution of our taste and consumption over the past 40 years is really quite incredible - the choices we have today would be unrecognisable to a person from the 1950s and Britain is an infinitely better place for it." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/737751/Magical-memory-tour-of-London.html

"Habitat's heritage confirms its status as one of the most recognised and best loved brands on the high street. "A unique diaspora of global sources that Habitat has built up over the decades give it a head start in finding new ideas, and all this is topped with an unparalleled network of designers - both up and coming and famous - nourishing the collections with innovative ideas." http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/lifestyle/cityliving/homestyle//tm_headline=habi-birthday&method=full&objectid=14234607&siteid=50002-name_page.html

The business expanded quickly in the UK throughout the 1960s and internationally with the first overseas store opening in 1973 in Paris.^[2] Habitat also published a catalogue that showed a range of products grouped together in pleasant surroundings.^[5]

Even the chain's artful catalogue, with its photogenic young couples and families enjoying bright, unstuffy Habitat-filled rooms, became a status symbol. Sometimes, the catalogue was too forward-looking for customers: when the 1973 edition featured a mixed-race couple in bed, letters of complaint followed. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jul/28/habitat-furniture-high-street

In 1981, the company's shares were floated on the London Stock Exchange^[2] and in 1982 merged with Mothercare Group to form Habitat Mothercare Group PLC.^[2] The now-listed company bought the furniture retailer Heal's and the Richard Shops fashion chain in 1983.^[2] In 1986, the company merged with British Home Stores to form Storehouse plc.^[2] In 1992 Habitat was purchased from Storehouse by IKANO.^[2] In October 2009, following several years of trading losses, the Kamprad family, who own IKANO, put the company up for sale,^[6] and it was sold to Hilco, a restructuring specialist, in December 2009 with the Kamprad family writing off the debts of the company and providing €50 million (£45 million) of working capital while Hilco paid about €15m.^[7]

In June 2009 Habitat was criticised for taking advantage of the list of trending topics on the social-networking service Twitter to promote its products.^[9] These topics included hashtags referring to Apple, the iPhone, Mousavi (the Iranian presidential candidate) as well as other hashtags relating to the 2009 Iranian election protests. Because the products being promoted had nothing to do with the subject of the hashtags Habitat's actions were considered to be spam. Habitat's PR department reacted quickly to delete the offending posts and blamed an intern for the inappropriate use of the hashtags and apologised to Twitter users for their actions. However, the identity of the intern was not revealed.^[10] Habitat returned to Twitter in September 2009.^[11] See examples of outcry here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2009/jun/22/twitter-advertising

On 24 June 2011 Hilco, who had owned Habitat UK Ltd since December 2009, announced that they were putting the company into administration.^[15] Home Retail Group (owner of Argos and Homebase) purchased the Habitat brand, three Central London stores and the UK website.^[16] The UK business was registered under the name Habitat Retail Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Home Retail Group. Home Retail Group will retain approx 100 staff at the London stores and around 50 in head office, including many of Habitat's in-house designers, buyers and merchandisers. Cafom, a company registered in France, purchased Habitat's European businesses.^[17] As of 11 September 2011, all other Habitat stores in the UK had been closed by Hilco with around 750 employees being made redundant.

"Of course I'm sad that my love child, Habitat, appears to be dying, but I am more interested in the future of my own business and design projects - that is my focus," said Sir Terence Conran. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13901123

Habitat said that, "trading conditions have remained challenging for retailers of big ticket items such as furniture" with the company continuing to make a loss. "A return to profitability for the business in the UK appears unlikely in the near term as many of the stores are expensive and poorly located for a furniture retailer," it said in a statement. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13901123

sasso29 July 2011 10:45am The reason Habitat has gone bump is because the quality of their products is utter shit - this probably happened around the same time that Ikea took over. However their prices remained the same - Ikea shit quality with inflated Habitat prices - c'mon please brother...How long do you think that was going to last? I think that Habitat customers have moved over to John Lewis - I know I have. They seem to have filled the gap - quality products coupled with interesting and exciting design. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jul/28/habitat-furniture-high-street

deshepherd 29 July 2011 10:45am Doesn't everybody buy their home furnishings at IKEA these days? Well, the market segment that used to shop in Habitat in pre-IKEA days almost certainly do (we definitely do!). When I bought my first flat in 1986 trips to Habitat and the Habitat catalog where standard requirements to either find or get ideas for furniture and fittings ... nowadays its a walk around IKEA - and you get to have meatballs and almondy cake at the end as well. I think IKEA completely wrong-footed Habitat as they associated out-of-town warehouses selling flat-pack furniture with low-grade MFI style stuff and didn't see IKEA as competing with them (I met someone who worked at Habitat when IKEA announced it was opening its first UK store ... all Habitat staff were called to meetings to be assured that they could ignore all the publicity about IKEA as it would not be competing for the same customers as them). That said, Habitiat did make some good, solid items ... I've still got a bookcase I bought 25 years ago which has been dismantled and reassembled for 5 moves (including going to California and back) in that time. It would be suffocated by Ikea's ultra-populist ideas about sales and pricing: "They found it very hard to understand why people would pay more [for an item]." I think that sums it up ... on our recent infrequent visits to Habitat my wife and my browsing has tended to be limited to looking at the price of a kitchen table that my sister bought followed by comments of "did she really pay that much for a kitchen table"! http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jul/28/habitat-furniture-high-street

The Home Retail Group acquired the three Central London stores in Tottenham Court Road, King’s Road and Finchley Road and the transactional website. It has since begun to roll out mini Habitat stores within Homebase branches nationwide. In October 2012 the first of these mini Habitat stores open in Ruislip, followed by launches in Solihull, Ewell, Battersea, Horsham,Orpington, Leeds, Bracknell and Truro. By the end of 2013 Habitat said there will be 14 mini Habitat stores across the UK. Habitat has also begun to offer a selection of Habitat products in 200Homebase and Argos stores nationwide and on the Argos and Homebase websites. "The style-led credentials of the Habitat brand, with its strong heritage, will be a significant addition to the group's portfolio of own brands," said HRG chief executive Terry Duddy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13901123

the climate for British retail almost unprecedentedly harsh, and Habitat's traditional core customers – first-time property buyers, students and other young adults setting up home – either disappearing or under terrible financial strain, Habitat's condition is widely seen as terminal. The chain's long association with modern, often foreign design, at a time when fashionable tastes have turned towards all things British and vintage, is also a factor. After its sale to Home Retail Group was announced, Habitat's founder, legendary lifestyle entrepreneur Terence Conran, who has not been involved with the business since 1990, issued a statement: "I'm sad that my love child . . . appears to be dying." http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jul/28/habitat-furniture-high-street

Habitat launched Platform, a design initiative and gallery space housed in the King’s Road store in 2012 that now hosts a calendar of design exhibitions throughout the year.

IKEA is Habitat’s contemporary- they could not compete with IKEA’s accessibility and pricing- Habitat seemed dated in comparison. Ironic that IKEA once owned it? Run the brand down?

Application:

Identify what made brand successful and expand on this rather than trying to reach a greater number of people through product expansion

Know your consumer! Don’t lose integrity of brand and the brand followers. Including looking for investment/ sell out to other companies- can drive business down especially if not enough focus!

Have a simple showroom so focus is on the product

Cataloguing and archiving- available and can be made if necessary

Focus on design and purpose not money i.e. Habitat’s decision to enter the London Stock Exchange

Everything seems to be online, but be careful not to “spam” people’s news feeds with unrelated content/ hashtags (integrity and seriousness lost) Plan considered content that engages users!

Launch concessions in other stores- widen reach without alienating existing consumers- make product available. Mini stores/pop ups- smaller selection.

Have a “platform” which is separate to what the brand sells e.g. Habitat’s Platform which showcases design and exhibitions- this could be applied to other brands. It is PR through association and provides the opportunity for interior companies to expand outside of product e.g. events/ launches etc. Also gives brand something to talk about and converse with clients about other than always aiming for a sale- reference point.

Offerings/ collections to suit all pricing/budget requirements.

Know your competition and what they are doing- don’t let them become a “threat”

Make sure you do not “sell out” and maintain focus

Location- is it product suitable i.e. Chelsea Harbour/ IKEA stores in industrial parks with free parking etc. Who are the competitors around you.

Quality!

Sources of information:

http://www.habitat.co.uk/Platform/content/fcp-content

http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/assets/competitioncommission/docs/pdf/inquiry/completed/2006/storecard/pdf/initial_subs_retailers_habitat

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13901123

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/lifestyle/cityliving/homestyle//tm_headline=habi-birthday&method=full&objectid=14234607&siteid=50002-name_page.html

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/dec/22/artsfeatures2

http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2009/jun/22/twitter-advertising

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/home-retail-buys-habitat-u-k-brand-amid-chain-s-administration.html

http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/habitat-opens-concessions-in-homebase-stores/3035512.article

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jul/28/habitat-furniture-high-street

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_(retailer)

John Lewis Case Study

John Lewis Case Study

Who?

John Lewis is a chain of upmarket department stores operating throughout Great Britain. The chain is owned by the John Lewis Partnership. The first John Lewis store was opened in 1864 in Oxford Street, London. John Lewis is different, because – unlike these other institutions like the Co-op, it is owned not by its customers but by its staff.

Application:

The company, which shares a proportion of its profits with staff every year, is investing in the latest online technology and new concepts such as a drive-through facility for collecting groceries ordered on line as well as ensuring its department stores look good enough to host up-market beauty brands alongside its traditional home, electrical’s and fashion ranges.

It also works hard to make sure online customers don't feel short-changed.  "The crucial part of service online is the last mile," MD Andy Street explains in the documentary. "We have to bring the service into online." He does this by making delivery options perfectly tailored to customers' wants and by making sure the standards of expertise are carried through onto the website. So the site has loads of handy podcasts and advice guides.

John Lewis Oxford Street is the first department store in the world to be fully mapped by Google Street View. Designed by Ideal Insight, the new service will involve over 500 panoramas, allowing customers to navigate the retailer’s flagship shop and virtually walk through the aisles. If the trial is successful, there could be a roll-out to other branches in the next two years.

Meanwhile, this month John Lewis Cheadle, John Lewis Brent Cross will trial in-store transactional tablets - enabling customers to skip the queues at till banks and make their purchases directly with the Partner (member of staff) who advised them. The tablets will be fully linked to the shop’s till systems, allowing customers to complete their purchase in the shop or arrange home delivery. They will be trialled in a number of departments including technology and white goods.

Successful?

·         In the face of persistent economic head winds, Waitrose has been growing at twice the rate of its major supermarket rivals while its sister John Lewis department stores are a constant nail in the shoe of rival Marks & Spencer, which is losing market share as the partnership strides confidently on.

·         John Lewis is expected to reveal a 17pc rise in profits to £415m after a 10pc rise in sales to £8.5bn for the year to January.

·         Last year Which? Member’s voted John Lewis best high street retailer; this year they gave the award to Waitrose. A poll of 6,000 people by Verdict Research in 2008 named John Lewis "Britain's favourite retailer".

·         To its customers, John Lewis’s success lies in their service. They have distinguished themselves by having salespeople who actually know about the products they’re selling and make the shopping experience a pleasure.

·         John Lewis's latest Christmas campaign prompted its biggest response on Twitter yet, with 80% of nearly 90,000 mentions praising the TV ad. The ad, ‘The Bear and the Hare’, debuted on ITV’s ‘The X Factor’ on Saturday night 9 November and prompted 86,300 mentions on Twitter over the weekend, according to research from agency We Are Social. This was up from 66,800 mentions, or 29%, from its launch weekend last year – some way short of the stellar 265% increase in conversations between 2011 and 2012. Mentions peaked at 31,200 between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday evening, with 4,700 tweets sent between 8:17pm and 8:18 pm alone. Of the tweeters, 30% were male and 70% were female.

Sources of information:

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1220416/numbers-john-lewis-xmas-ad-social-media-reaction

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9904538/How-John-Lewis-has-weathered-the-high-street-storm.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/streets-ahead-does-john-lewis-offer-a-revolutionary-way-forward-for-big-business-1774510.html

http://www.smarta.com/advice/sales-and-marketing/sales/five-lessons-in-customer-service-from-john-lewis/

http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/02/john-lewis-christmas-rise-sales

IKEA - Case Study

(All quotes from Great Ikea! book)

WHO?

Ingvar
Kamprad
Elmtaryd
Agunnaryd

Mission:

IKEA started in Sweden over 50 years ago with one man’s vision. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, wanted “To create a better everyday life for the many people” through good FORM and FUNCTION, at a LOW PRICE. http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/ikea/meeting-the-needs-of-the-consumer/introduction.html#ixzz2kto1mjMn 

Ikea’s innovation lies not only in designing for the mass market, but also in its production. Ikea’s mission “to improve the everyday life of the many people” drives everything it does and leads to astonishing feats of low cost, good design. P.84

In order to realise the aims of his business idea, Kamprad needed a way of designing which would make it possible to maintain high quality standards, while at the same time making reductions in price. The solution he came up with was based on common sense and a respect for the customer. He carried out detailed research in the different life stages and the needs of customers at each stage (e.g. setting up home for the first time, raising a young family, retiring etc.). From this, he was able to calculate what customers would be able to afford, while still having some money over. p,84

Consumer:

IKEA is basing their stores around attracting young, lower income individuals. College students and young adults, who tend to be in the low-income category, are a big target market for IKEA because these are the individuals who are looking to buy furniture for the first time. They are not looking to spend a lot of money because they are still unsure about their futures.  

http://kevinrjohnson.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/7/5637086/marketing_paper.pdf

IKEA targets people with a “do it yourself and save money doing it” kind of lifestyle. IKEA focuses on people with this lifestyle because they are the ones that are not going to mind traveling a little bit and assembling the furniture on their own in order to save some money. 

http://kevinrjohnson.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/7/5637086/marketing_paper.pdf

It’s also replaced the family day trip. Going to Ikea at the weekend is the new family outing. P.104

Most major corporations don’t provide on-site childcare, yet Ikea does – for free. P.103

The Store:

The Swedish delicacies in the restaurant and in the food shop at the end of the store are all part of the Ikea experience. P.69

Ikea is like a museum of the modern world. Herd-like instincts are encouraged. P.100

The Ikea pathway makes it almost impossible to stick to a list. Even the most disciplined shoppers will find it hard not to be tempted into buying something they didn’t even know they wanted until they saw it in an Ikea display. It’s a clever selling device, and manipulates people into buying things they hadn’t previously considered. P.104

Promotional tools:

It’s easy to forget that Ikea’s most powerful weapon is its catalogue. It’s read more widely than the Bible. It’s the crown jewels of Ikea’s communications. In 2004, 145 million copies of the catalogue were printed in 48 editions and 25 languages. P.133

The catalogue persuades us that Ikea can tidy and transform our chaotic, hectic lifestyles. P.133

SUCCESSFUL?

Great SWOT on http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/ikea-swot-analysis.html

Figures:

With an intense focus on customer experience and value, IKEA reported an outstanding 9.5 percent sales growth and introduced 2,000 new products to its stores in 2012. Working to maintain a relevant instore experience, IKEA enhanced delivery, assembly, and installation options and opened 11 stores in nine countries, including its first South American store in the Dominican Republic, and released plans to open at least 200 stores within the next eight years. Now operating in 40 countries, notably gaining presence in Asia and the Middle East, the brand also became one of the few businesses to experience growth in Europe in 2012. (more on site)

IKEA is no 26 on Interbrands Top 100 Global Brands list 2013. +8%

Above info from: http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/IKEA

Mr Ohlsson argues that IKEA is more competitive as a privately owned company. Instead of sweating to meet the quarterly targets the stockmarket demands, it can concentrate on long-term growth. 

Understand their consumer:

Each room set has been carefully crafted by an Ikea designer to appeal to a certain type of person. There is a Scandinavian style, a country style (which works well in England), a modern style, and a “young Swede” style. P.104

When the Ikea designers prepare a room set they have got a detailed picture of customers in their head: what kind of clothes they wear, what kind of car they drive, what kind of taste they have – every detail. P.104

Price

Ikea has democratised the whole business of home making, making furniture and household goods affordable to all. P.6

Sourcing cheap materials is essential for Ikea’s low prices. P.93

Designing products that could be flat packed and assembled by customers enabled Ikea to cut costs significantly. They no longer wasted money transporting empty space with its products, and lowered both its storage and transport costs. P.82

One of Ikea’s entrenched competitive advantages, difficult to replicate, is quite simply that the product itself looks more expensive than it is. P.93

Customer satisfaction:

Ikea gives you a feeling of being useful and practical – you’re doing something tangible for your home. P.24

Ikea’s way of shopping, of putting your stuff together and taking it home – this is an innovation Ikea owns. This is why it’s so cheap and this is what differentiates it from the competition. P.24

Change people's taste:

Ikea’s philosophy was that if you can’t change the product you’ve got to change people. p.123

New advertising brief was to persuade people that modern was good for them and change their taste. P.124

APPLICATION

• They understand their consumer
• Stick to their promise
• Keep their business strategies simple and realistic

What other brands can learn from Ikea: p.187

1.       Ikea has a meaningful purpose. It understands that the way to make money is to be dedicated to a vision.

2.       Ikea is driven by long-term thinking rather than short-term sales pressure.

3.       Ikea understands the importance of being honest and transparent

4.       Ikea rarely asks its customers what they want, but uses good design, low prices, and challenging advertising to persuade them

5.       Ikea turns problems and difficulties into opportunities.

For interior design industry to take away:

1. There are a number of different consumer types who use pattern books, much like Ikea, therefore they need a detailed picture of each consumer in their head before they create and promote their designs.

2. There are weaknesses and threats for the pattern book (see SWOT), however they should turn these into opportunities that can benefit both the consumer, designer and retailer.

Great book with quotes for everyone!!

Lewis, E.2005. Great Ikea! A brand for all the people. London: Cyan Communications Ltd

Georgina - IKEA case study

Catherine - Taste, matchy consumer

Beth - Era's (scanned pages coming soon!)

Ikea has democratised the whole business of home making, making furniture and household goods affordable to all. P.6

On the other hand, Ikea has made furniture a disposable fashion item, a symbol of the way modern consumer society has corrupted our sense of value – no one buys an item of Ikea furniture to hand down to future generations. P.6

It is rare for a brand to have such an impact on society. Ikea persuade us that fashion is no longer what you wear, but how your home is decorated. It had played a crucial role in driving the rise and rise of fashion in the home. P.14

There’s a “Topshop” fashion mentality, furniture has become disposable and transient. Ikea is a brand that gives you an opportunity for self-expression. P.14

We use our homes to project our personal identity. You can’t control the outside world, but can control inside your home and make it look nice. P.14

Ikea has made designers of us all. Buying some accessories and feeling like you’ve made a whole difference p.15

The quality will be different, but the homes will look similar. P.20

Dr Viviano Narotsky, senior researcher fellow in the history of design at RCA. She believes that: “The differences in taste and furnishing between income groups used to be more defined – they liked different things. Now they like the same style. It’s a measure of popularisation of taste.” P.20

Dr Narotsky believes that Ikea reflects post-modernism. The domestic space has become a closed expression of individual identity and is ever-changing. P.21

There’s a supermarket mentality about furniture nowadays – it’s disposable. The home fits into the shopping cycle like food and fashion. P.21

Ikea believes that is has impacted social change. Employees are quite clear that they have educated the masses about how to furnish their homes. We’ve taught people about symmetry, getting the dimensions tight and about lighting and knowing where to place objects p.21

The Ikea generation. We buy sofas and tables for a quick fashion fix. Each home, each room set reflects a certain moment in time – there’s the student pad, the bachelor pad. p.22

Our parents have a very different relationship with furniture. The things I inherit from my parents I’ll pass on. But it won’t be Ikea because their furniture doesn’t pass the test of time. P.22

Ikea is an anti-marketing brand. On paper it doesn’t work. It never asks its customers what they want, but tells them instead. P.23

Whether you love or hate the Swedish ministry of furniture, be sure about one thing – Ikea loves you. That is, as long as you’re prepared to work for its affection – by assembling your own furniture, fetching your stuff from the warehouse. P.23

Ikea gives you a feeling of being useful and practical – you’re doing something tangible for your home. P.24

Ikea’s way of shopping, of putting your stuff together and taking it home – this is an innovation Ikea owns. This is why it’s so cheap and this is what differentiates it from the competition. P.24

The Swedish delicacies in the restaurant and in the food shop at the end of the store are all part of the Ikea experience. P.69

Sweden’s neutrality means that it is well liked abroad and its “Swedishness” has been a help rather than a hindrance during Ikea’s international expansion. P.74

Designing products that could be flat packed and assembled by customers enabled Ikea to cut costs significantly. They no longer wasted money transporting empty space with its products, and lowered both its storage and transport costs. P.82

Ikea’s innovation lies not only in designing for the mass market, but also in its production. Ikea’s mission “to improve the everyday life of the many people” drives everything it does and leads to astonishing feats of low cost, good design. P.84

One of Ikea’s entrenched competitive advantages, difficult to replicate, is quite simply that the product itself looks more expensive than it is. P.93

Sourcing cheap materials is essential for Ikea’s low prices. P.93

Ikea is like a museum of the modern world. Herd-like instincts are encouraged. P.100

Most major corporations don’t provide on-site childcare, yet Ikea does – for free. P.103

It’s also replaced the family day trip. Going to Ikea at the weekend is the new family outing. P.104

Each room set has been carefully crafted by an Ikea designer to appeal to a certain type of person. There is a Scandinavian style, a country style (which works well in England), a modern style, and a “young Swede” style. P.104

When the Ikea designers prepare a room set they have got a detailed picture of customers in their head: what kind of clothes they wear, what kind of car they drive, what kind of taste they have – every detail. P.104

The Ikea pathway makes it almost impossible to stick to a list. Even the most disciplined shoppers will find it hard not to be tempted into buying something they didn’t even know they wanted until they saw it in an Ikea display. It’s a clever selling device, and manipulates people into buying things they hadn’t previously considered. P.104

Ikea people always say that their range is their identity. It’s a mountain of choice rather than a carefully edited selection. Rather than get people through the store quickly and conveniently, they march them past every single item. P.105

There’s more to self-assembly furniture than another Ikea cost-cutting measure. It becomes a tool of evangelism, another moral crusade that teaches you the value of good, honest, Swedish hard work. And that’s why we feel attached to our Ikea furniture – the ritual ties us closer to our purchases. P.114

Advertising needs to cajole consumers to accept the possibility of disposable, fashionable furniture. This is furniture that you change and swap when you get bored; you don’t buy a sofa for life any more. P.118

Ikea’s philosophy was that if you can’t change the product you’ve got to change people à change people’s taste p.123

New advertising brief was to persuade people that modern was good for them and change their taste. P.124

Ikea’s advertising always works best when it has an enemy. In 1996 in Britain, it was chintz. P.124

The most potent symbol of British taste in the home was chintz – a floral, country-house style fabric that dresses English sofas, cushions, beds, and windows. “Chuck out your chintz”, an ad that urged women to spring clean their homes to make room for some Scandinavian style, was launched in Autumn 1996. P.124

It’s easy to forget that Ikea’s most powerful weapon is its catalogue. It’s read more widely than the Bible. It’s the crown jewels of Ikea’s communications. In 2004, 145 million copies of the catalogue were printed in 48 editions and 25 languages. P.133

The catalogue persuades us that Ikea can tidy and transform our chaotic, hectic lifestyles. P.133

Ikea’s expansion model is simple and unsophisticated. You only need one set of instructions to assemble an Ikea store where you are in the world. P.157

What other brands can learn from Ikea: p.187

1.       Ikea has a meaningful purpose. It understands that the way to make money is to be dedicated to a vision.

2.       Ikea is driven by long-term thinking rather than short-term sales pressure.

3.       Ikea understands the importance of being honest and transparent

4.       Ikea rarely asks its customers what they want, but uses good design, low prices, and challenging advertising to persuade them

5.       Ikea turns problems and difficulties into opportunities.

How taste has changed in UK (click to zoom in) BETH USEFUL FOR YOU?

Sign of the times as shown through the rise, fall, rise, fall of Habitat

Some interesting context points given about interiors from the 1950s to the 2000s in this article about habitat who moved away from design into "novelty"
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jul/28/habitat-furniture-high-street

A closing Habitat store in Essex. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

It is a grim Friday morning in Thurrock in Essex: roundabouts in the rain, windswept retail parks, recession-emptied car parks. Half-hidden on a poor site, beyond a huge Ikea branch and half a dozen other homeware outlets, the local Habitat looks forlorn. "Store closing" banners in tacky fat capital letters dwarf the lower-case, still elegant Habitat shop logo. Inside, the chain's usual vaguely Mediterranean furniture and cheery crockery is in undignified, desperate-seeming piles: "All stock reduced!"

Jamie, a nurse in his mid-40s from nearby Upminster, quietly stylish in a red-and-black striped top and suede boots, comes out of the shop with two vast, full carrier bags. "I grew up with Habitat," he says. "My parents went to the original shop in the 60s. It was quite iconic for them." And for him? He frowns: "I haven't got a massive salary. I've always found it pricey, and the quality of the products hit and miss. Some have been great – they did a lovely olive-wood pestle and mortar, I bought loads as presents. But I've often window-shopped in Habitat. I've tended to buy things in sales."

After 47 years, a small eternity in modern retail, Habitat may have finally reached the beginning of the end. Last month, for the second time in 18 months, the core of the business was sold, this time to the British conglomerate Home Retail Group, operator of the slightly less iconic Homebase and Argos. The Habitat website, brand and three best-positioned London shops will survive, at least for now, and Habitat concessions are planned for some Homebase branches; but Habitat's 30 other British stores are in the hands of an administrator, and all are likely to close by the end of the year, if not much sooner.

Habitat has had near-death experiences before: in the early 90s recession for example. Yet this time, with the climate for British retail almost unprecedentedly harsh, and Habitat's traditional core customers – first-time property buyers, students and other young adults setting up home – either disappearing or under terrible financial strain, Habitat's condition is widely seen as terminal. The chain's long association with modern, often foreign design, at a time when fashionable tastes have turned towards all things British and vintage, is also a factor. After its sale to Home Retail Group was announced, Habitat's founder, legendary lifestyle entrepreneur Terence Conran, who has not been involved with the business since 1990, issued a statement: "I'm sad that my love child . . . appears to be dying."

"It's just an almighty shame," says the designer Tom Dixon, who between 1998 and 2008 was Habitat's head of design and then creative director. "The end of an era." With British store chains expiring almost weekly, such declarations about the downsizing of a single, medium-sized one, which employed 732 people at the last count, could be seen as over-theatrical. "Habitat has only made two annual profits since 2001," says Robert Clark, director of Retail Week's Knowledge Bank. Last October, a Knowledge Bank report on Habitat found "sharply declining sales", "soaring staff costs", and a seeming chaos of branch openings and closures, arriving and departing senior managers, head office relocations and emergency cash injections. "In a downturn," says Clark, "there are two sectors of retail that always go bad: furniture and menswear. Customers can postpone their purchases." Habitat, even in its new brutally shrunken form, is lucky to still be in business at all.

And yet, as Dixon puts it, "Habitat still retains a cachet of some sort." Even Clark agrees: "I used to go to the first shop on the Fulham Road [in London]. It was the destination, from the early 60s on, for the younger generation of married people who had disposable income." Online, there is a busy trade in old Habitat annual catalogues: a 1970-1990 set, "a lavish feast of early 70s design [and] onwards", even with four years missing, is being offered for £240.

Among other socially influential products, Habitat has pioneered or popularised duvets and bean bags, woks and paper lanterns, sofa beds and self-assembly furniture, cafetieres and wine racks. It has sold rough-edged Provençal peasant chic and clean-lined continental modernism; wholegrain hippy styles and metallic yuppy ones; idealised versions of both country and urban living; quality goods and disposable ones. Habitat has reflected social change and has also changed Britain – for the better.

With its branches historically concentrated in university towns and near gentrified inner-city suburbs, its story is partly that of the postwar expansion – and now possible contraction – of the British middle class. As a member of the latter, I've been a Habitat customer, not always satisfied, for decades: sometimes its spotlit shops have seemed too hot, its young staff too cool and dozy, its range of merchandise too fixed and flimsy ("Shabitat" is an enduring nickname). But Habitat, as Dixon says, has always been "an organisation based on a lot of intangibles: emotion, taste, snobbishness, aspiration. Paying more than an object is worth is really what Habitat is about." For many Britons, Habitat livened up the previously utilitarian business of home-making with little doses of fantasy, of enjoyment.

For a surprisingly long time, that idea proved commercially viable. When he opened the first shop in 1964, Conran was already a veteran of British domestic design and retail, then characterised by dour furniture stores and a few frustrated, more adventurous spirits like himself. Conran had been to France ("bright colours . . . everything was so simple and beautiful"), and discovered the "stone floors and simple, unpretentious furniture" of the servants' sections of National Trust country houses – refreshingly, the grander rooms on show did not interest him. "I have a taste for austerity and utility," he wrote later, "but that's certainly not to say I have no appetite for pleasure."

The Fulham Road Habitat was in a then-workaday part of west London near a greasy spoon and a pub. But inside it felt like a new world: fresh white walls, cut flowers, piped music (a first), staff dressed in the latest streamlined styles. The fashionable and famous flooded in. "The Duke of Kent got his foot stuck in a fish kettle . . . Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard did their courting in the basement; David Niven was found fighting to get in one day as the doors closed," writes Barty Phillips in Conran and the Habitat Story.

It was not the first shop to offer cosmopolitan modern design at cheap-ish prices: Design Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had been doing it since 1953. But Habitat was in a city and a country that was just discovering many of the things – Mediterranean food and travel, the allure of mass-manufactured goods, more informal ways of arranging rooms – that Conran was interested in. "He engaged with the marketplace. He just had that knack," says Clark.

A Habitat store in 1973 Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images

In the 60s and 70s, young British adults, whether middle-class or working-class, had more money than ever before. In unprecedented numbers, they were buying property, moving away from home to study, cohabiting, taking up DIY. Habitat was on hand to help. After decades of slow urban decay, Britain was full of cheap, vacant retail space; Habitat quickly spread out of London: to Manchester in 1967, Brighton in 1969, Bristol in 1971, Glasgow in 1973. By the mid-70s the company needed a new warehouse to improve its haphazard stock delivery; Conran, ever the showman, commissioned a facility so striking that national newspapers praised its design. When the architects couldn't decide on a colour, Conran told them to match the colour of his Porsche, Phillips records. "He had driven into a bollard and sent the whole damaged wing as a colour sample."

Habitat was in tune with both the materialism and egalitarianism of 70s Britain. In Malcolm Bradbury's celebrated 1975 campus novel The History Man, set in 1972, Barbara Kirk, one half of the book's central, leftwing "modern couple", has "two red canvas bags, Swiss, from Habitat". Even the chain's artful catalogue, with its photogenic young couples and families enjoying bright, unstuffy Habitat-filled rooms, became a status symbol. Sometimes, the catalogue was too forward-looking for customers: when the 1973 edition featured a mixed-race couple in bed, letters of complaint followed.

Conran was a risk-taking, mercurial boss. Even in the late 80s, by which time Habitat had expanded into France, Japan and the US, someone who worked on the catalogue remembers: "He came along to a shoot and had very strong ideas on the styling." His crusading attitude and eye for detail inspired a young, idealistic staff; less helpful to Habitat, sometimes, was his recurring ambition to turn it from a niche into a mainstream retailer. In 1971, after a brief, disastrous merger with office supplier Ryman had unravelled, an accountant hired by Habitat found finances so tangled that: "We had no idea if we were making a profit or a loss."

Undaunted, during the 80s Habitat merged with Mothercare, acquired the famous old London furniture store Heal's and the women's clothing chain Richard Shops, and then merged again, with the department store British Home Stores. The resulting unfocused conglomerate, Storehouse, was far from Conran's original, tightly defined Habitat concept.

Meanwhile Habitat itself began to lose its uniqueness. For almost two decades, it had had little competition: "Habitat seems to have failed to influence other retailers," wrote Phillips in 1983. But then that changed: "Other shops started getting good in the early 80s," says the cultural commentator Peter York, "and one of the reasons was that people who had worked for Conran [at Habitat] went out and set up businesses like him, or gave advice to retailers." They copied Habitat's shop-fitting tricks, such as arranging goods in colourful piles and bunches, which Conran had himself copied from French ironmongers.

In the mid-80s, equally damagingly, Habitat lost its ability to reinvent its range to suit the times. The vogue for aristocratic style, antiques and Georgian pastiche during Thatcherism's triumphant years was difficult for Habitat to embrace, given the company's associations with a more forward-looking, democratic aesthetic. And for Britons who still wanted the latter, 1987 saw the arrival in Britain of a formidable competitor: Ikea.

The Swedish giant was much cheaper and more efficient. By the early 90s, with a recession setting in, Habitat was unambiguously losing money, and Conran had been forced out, thanks in part to Storehouse's labyrinthine internal politics. In 1992 Habitat was bought by Ikea – an undignified but appropriate fate for a chain that had made its name partly by introducing Britons to design from Scandinavia.

The years since have been a struggle, with occasional hints of a return to the glory days. In 1998 the hiring of Dixon, a bold, upmarket British designer who confessed to interviewers he had never bought anything from Habitat, restored some of the chain's originality and ambition. "I did research on what Habitat was like in 1964," he remembers. As Conran had then, Dixon used celebrities and well-known designers to give the shops a whiff of glamour, this time to devise new products. "It felt exciting," says a photographer who worked for the chain under Dixon. "Habitat was becoming a cool design company again."

"I had a few hits," Dixon says. But being owned by Ikea created problems. "We were a pretty small fish. We'd go into a factory used to producing vast volumes for Ikea, and ask for Habitat-type quantities, and we wouldn't be seen as an attractive proposition." Habitat would end up behind its parent company in the production queue. Or it would be suffocated by Ikea's ultra-populist ideas about sales and pricing: "They found it very hard to understand why people would pay more [for an item]."

By 2000, furniture websites were commonplace, but Ikea, ultra-cautious about internet commerce, was reluctant to let Habitat build one. Astonishingly for a high-street retailer, Habitat did not open for business online until 2009. That year, Ikea sold the chain to Hilco, a company restructuring specialist. Ikea and Hilco together spent more than £100m writing off Habitat's debts and providing new investment, but within 18 months Hilco decided Habitat was not a good prospect, and last month dismembered the business.

The decline of Habitat may be a symptom of a certain British postwar expansiveness going into reverse: of young or youngish people who are poorer not richer than their predecessors, who are leaving home later, and who have less faith, perhaps, in the pleasure of shopping and the ability of attractive homeware to make them happy. "The excitement of buying a nice mug – it's gone," says York. "You don't expect to linger. You buy them cheaply and in large numbers."

Dixon still thinks there could be more to mass home retail than the joyless bargain-hunting of a trip to Ikea. "There are so many more people now who are interested in interiors. It feels like there is an almighty big gap in the market." He starts sketching out a shop that sells slick but affordable kitchenware and sounds rather like the first Habitat. Would he consider buying the three surviving branches? "Sure, I'd be interested. But I don't think they're up for grabs."

In one of those shops, a handsome but slightly scuffed semi-basement on Tottenham Court Road that has served generations of north London liberals, the customers are sparse the morning I visit. They are generally middle-aged or older, interestingly dressed, cerebral-looking: the sort of people you see at arthouse cinemas. The Habitat tribe is still out there, but it may not be that large, and it needs new recruits.

But is that a project that interests the latest owners? In a secluded corner of the store, I overhear a conversation between a man in a suit, with an overnight case on wheels and a head-office air – he seems to be one of the new bosses – and one of the staff. "There are two things I think are really missing," says the man in the suit, "some mid-range, really good value product, and some unusual product." It's a long way from Terence Conran and his dreams of Provence.