Translating Retail Success Across National Borders
By Bernice Hurst, Managing Director, Fine Food Networks
There is yet another potential impact of importing and exporting that retailers are now starting to consider. Boasting 273 stores attracting some 583 million customers each year, IKEA, for example, needs to be aware of what people think and feel.
Both The Independent and The Daily Telegraph in the UK reported that Danish customers of the Swedish shop are less than happy with what's being offered for sale or at least with what the products are called.
IKEA's products tend to have names rather than numbers, a situation that has recently caused complaints from customers in Denmark, historically a rival of IKEA's Swedish-based empire. According to The Independent, complaints have been made about some of the names chosen. Apparently those with Danish derivation are used for some of the retailer's less salubrious, or lowly, products such as doormats, rug linings and toilet seats, for example.
A free Danish newspaper, Nyhedsavisen, seems to be stirring things up by pointing out that Swedish names are used for "more prestigious" products, such as leather sofas. To rub salt into Danish wounds, it seems that "Norway gets sleek black bedroom furniture like Mandal, Finland gets solid wood dining tables and chairs, but they get mats to wipe your feet on."
Simon Andersen, editor of Nyhedsavisen, later owned up to being less than serious with his complaint but reckoned that the retailer deserved a bit of teasing.
Joking aside, the fact that retailers are opening outlets far and wide does raise issues of cultural sensitivity. Following our recent discussion on this site about preparing for launch in a new market, it may be that there is an opportunity to make new friends by selecting names that are compatible with local history and a mutual sense of fun. As IKEA spokeswoman, Charlotte Lindgren, told The Independent, "If I were a Dane, I would be very proud because a carpet gives a space that something extra. It is the jewel of the room."
Discussion Question: Is the IKEA Danish experience unusual in the arena of global marketing? Where do retailers go to acquire the cultural education required to open without incident in new international markets? Is there are retail company or brand that you think best epitomizes how to go about expanding globally?