TAG

# IKEA

2026-11-03

The 100 Greatest Products · #40 | IKEA Flat-Pack: Sawing Off the Table Legs to Fit a Car Trunk Saved Billions in Shipping and Created the 'IKEA Effect'

【100 Greatest Products Who Changed the World #40 · 88 OVR】Before 1956, furniture was shipped fully assembled—meaning freight companies were mostly paid to transport empty air, and protruding table legs snapped in transit. Then IKEA employee #4 Gillis Lundgren sawed the legs off a LÖVET leaf-table to fit it inside his Volvo trunk. That single act slashed logistics volume by 80%, cut retail prices in half, and unlocked the psychological phenomenon known worldwide as the 'IKEA Effect.'

2026-10-27

Ingvar Kamprad: Selling 'Turning Screws' as a Weekend Ritual — How a Swedish Farm Boy Built IKEA with Sawed-Off Table Legs and a $1 Hot Dog

Ranked #41 on the 100 Product Managers Who Changed the World: Ingvar Kamprad (OVR 88.30 — Business 94, Insight 90, Vision 88, Scale 88, Taste 85, Origin 85). Starting from a stony farm in southern Sweden at age 17, he realized traditional furniture retailers were charging customers to ship empty air. With flat-pack boxes, self-serve warehouses, one-way showroom mazes, and the 'IKEA Effect,' he turned customer labor into a global retail empire.