Swedish Furniture Stores Thriving On Foreign Soil -- Ikea Is A Phenomenon, Gaining A Following Of Fans

Just try telling its legion of fanatical fans that IKEA, the latest mega-retailer ready to make an assault on the Seattle area, is just another furniture store.

Try convincing the stylish Seattle woman who carted an IKEA coat rack back from New York, on the airplane. Or the houseboat owner who made eight trips from here to Vancouver, B.C., to furnish her entire home in IKEA goods. Or the sophisticated woman who, upon hearing that IKEA was opening here, started squealing like a 12-year-old at a Marky Mark concert.

IKEA (pronounced i-KEE-a) is as much a cultural phenomenon as a place to buy sofas and sheets. A Swedish phenomenon, to be precise.

Still, although its roots are Swedish and its furniture and accessories are mostly of Scandinavian design, the company has thrived on foreign soil.

"The bottom line is, we have been having a reception here in America that is fantastic," says Goran Carstedt, president of IKEA North America, who was in town to check on IKEA's new Renton store.

The 150,000-square-foot store, IKEA's 13th in the U.S., is a few blocks west of Highway 167, on Southwest 43rd Street. The store is IKEA's first and only store planned for Washington. Undoubtedly, its opening should delight Puget Sound pilgrims who have been making the trek to the closest IKEA store, three hours away in Vancouver, B.C.

The Renton store opens Oct. 20, in an area populated with industrial park property leased mostly by The Boeing Co.

Perhaps the best gauge of how well IKEA will do here is its overall sales: $480 million in the U.S. last year, up from $160 million in 1990, making it the nation's third-largest furniture retailer. Worldwide, IKEA sales were $4.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year.

IKEA's stock in trade is moderately priced furniture with clean-lined Scandinavian designs and predominantly light-colored woods. Much of it is ready-to-assemble pieces that customers haul from warehouse shelves to check stand to car. IKEA emphasizes low prices: wicker chairs for $29, reclining leather swivel chairs for $99.

The stores also stock tableware, linens and towels, cookware, carpets, lamps, pots, pans and plants. Many of those items are designed to coordinate with IKEA's furniture.

"They sell lifestyle merchandise," says Seattle retail consultant Pat Johnson, of Outcalt & Johnson Retail Strategists. It's stylish, youthful and looks like it costs a lot more than it does.

"It's for the market that doesn't want furniture like their mom and dad had," she says.

On a quick tour through the store, Carstedt, an animated man dressed in a rumpled white dress shirt and no tie, noted some differences between traditional furniture stores and IKEA. No high-pressure sales people or silken ropes to keep customers from sitting on the furniture.

IKEA's furniture offerings are not that different from what's available at, say, Dania or Abodio. But the sheer volume of its furniture, and the combination of furniture, accessories and other notable features - such as a glassed-in playroom where children can be left while parents shop, or the restaurant serving Swedish favorites such as lingonberries - have turned IKEA into a weekend destination for shoppers.

In some areas, IKEA shoppers avoid the stores on weekends because crowds are so large. Other complaints also have surfaced - long waits (up to a half-hour)at cash registers, insufficient help from salespeople, too many goods out of stock.

Carstedt admits waits may be long in some stores on weekends, but says stock problems have improved since IKEA started carrying more goods manufactured in this country.

Still, huge crowds at IKEA stores are a "reality," he says with an apologetic smile and a shrug.

The Renton store is expected to draw large crowds on opening day.

"I can assure you," he says, smiling again, "it will be terrible."