Ikea sunsetting catalogue after 70 years

After almost 70 years, Swedish furniture giant Ikea is scrapping its iconic catalog.

The company will no longer produce print and digital versions of the book, it announced Monday.

It’s been touted as the most widely-distributed publication in the world, and more copies of the catalog are printed each year than the Bible or Quran.

Ikea’s decision to scrap the catalog didn’t come lightly. The company collected extensive customer feedback, it said, and decided to focus on its online store instead.

Ikea has seen a significant shift in consumer behavior thanks to the digital boom. In 2019, its online retail sales grew 45% worldwide.

Fewer people are using the catalog because of changing media consumption, it added.

The company will release a book of home furnishing inspiration “as tribute” in fall 2021.

“For 70 years it has been one of our most unique and iconic products, which has inspired billions of people across the world,” Konrad Grüss, managing director of the chain’s global franchisor Inter IKEA Systems, said.

Ikea described the decision as “emotional but rational.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Ikea didn’t didn’t explicitly cite its environmental credentials as a reason for the decision.

The company has increasingly focused on sustainability as it works towards its goal of becoming carbon positive by 2030, and in November it started buying back and reselling UK customers’ used furniture to counter the mass consumption associated with Black Friday.

This is the second time Ikea’s catalog has hit the headlines this fall.

In October, Ikea reissued some editions of its 2021 catalog because it included an image that it admitted could reinforce racist stereotypes

The first 68-page Ikea catalog was released in 1951 by the furniture chain’s founder Ingvar Kamprad, eight years after the company launched.

Its print run of 285,000 copies was distributed across southern Sweden

Fast-forward to 2016, and the catalog reached its highest print run. Around 200 million copies were distributed in 69 different versions, 32 languages, and more than 50 markets. Since 2000, Ikea has launched a full digital version of the catalog, too.

The catalog as we now know it is a massive affair for Ikea, taking around nine months to design each year. It shoots the images in its own studios in Älmhult, Sweden, which is one of the biggest photo studios in Europe.

The Ikea Museum, which is located in the same city, includes an exhibition on the catalog’s history.