I like Ikea.  It provides me with reasonably good-quality furniture and other home-related items at a reasonable price, and allows me to satisfy my inner builder impulse with small, instant-gratification projects.

The quote in the title of this post suggests understandable frustration with the Swedish furniture company for entering the American furniture market and seizing a large portion of the customer base from more traditional furniture stores and manufacturers.  However, quoted statement comes from someone who has an interest in a more traditional furniture store, and also believes in free-market economics.  For these reasons, the statement, “Ikea is evil,” is, at best, misguided, and most likely, uninformed.

I prefer to think of Ikea as entry-level furniture.  Not everyone needs, or even necessarily wants, craftsman-grade furniture made to exacting standards and of solid hardwoods and the like.  College graduates and low-income individuals also need furniture, and Ikea provides it at a price within reach for this demographic.  It’s also appropriate for people who are in a transitional period within their lives, whether that is college, a first limited-term position just out of school, or just switching careers.  The furniture is inexpensive enough to replace, durable enough to move frequently, and also of a high enough quality to be re-sold and readily reused.

Not everyone is in a place in their lives or careers where it is reasonable to invest thousands of dollars on extremely nice, heirloom-quality furniture.  Such an investment requires not only economic stability, but also maintaining a single residence for a an extended period of time.  Moving involves significant up-front costs, and moving expensive furniture carries its own premium.

Ikea satisfies a niche in the furniture market that is difficult for traditional furniture stores to court, mostly due to the cost of doing so.  I would argue that a majority of the people who buy furniture from Ikea would likely not have bought furniture from traditional furniture stores if it didn’t exist; instead, they would rely on classified ads, garage sales, and listings such as craigslist, or even go without.

Ikea isn’t evil; it is just a company that does a very good job of providing goods and services to a particular market.  It doesn’t sell name-brand furniture at discount prices; it sells its own designs and its own reproductions of more high-end designer pieces.  The reproductions may be an issue, but for the most part, it exists in a totally different market than traditional furniture stores.