SWEDISH furniture producer and exporter IKEA has become quite popular among Slovaks. Although it has only one complex in Slovakia, in Bratislava, it attracted three million visitors in 2013.
Yet, the construction of another Slovak IKEA shop, this time in Košice, has been delayed, mainly due to the low purchasing power of those living in the region. “An optimum turnover for a branch is €50 million, to be profitable,” regional manager of IKEA Marek Fertl told the Trend economic weekly. Thus, the weak market is mostly behind the delays, but problems around land ownership may also be playing a role.
Trend also explores the “IKEA effect”, as defined by US scientists: people, especially men, prefer to assemble furniture, which they have bought in parts, at home, and they feel a bigger sense of pride over the final result, regardless of its real aesthetic or practical value. “I made it myself, so I am a genius,” is the way many average customers think, according to Michjael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, who also found that those who assembled their furniture rated it more highly than an unbiased external observer.
