IKEA Catalogs are in the air! Take our poll on the right or reply to this post to let us know if you’ve got your catalog – some stores, like the franchise owned IKEA Houston got their catalogs out early this year, but many market areas are shipping at alternate dates.  Some, like IKEA Brooklyn, won’t send out IKEA catalogs to their customer list until late August.  Where are YOU on the list?  (After the jump, we’ll tell you how to get one early this year!)  Get on the list now.

If you just can’t wait, you can see the 2010 IKEA US Catalog online now – IKEA’s gotten hip and with it, and you can now share from the online IKEA catalog directly to Facebook.

IKEA has also worked hard to revamp its distribution for the 2010 catalog year.  Catalog distribution is different this year than in years’ past when IKEA catalogs arrived with the Sunday paper in major market areas, while those outside the market areas were forced to wait months to get one mailed by the mothership IF and I repeat IF you were somehow deemed a worthy potential shopper.  But I’m not bitter –  nooooo….!  Yikes – it was painful for those of us in the boonies, and I was personally lowered to (shhh!) sneaking dozens of copies out of the stores so that I could ship catalogs to folks who also didn’t ‘make the list’. I must have shipped 100 catalogs a year for the first couple years!

This year, IKEA is aiming for 1 week on shipping a catalog to you no matter where you reside.  Catalogs for everyone! Thanks, IKEA!  If you’d like to get yours early – we’re giving away IKEA Catalogs before they ship in Twin Cities. Find out where and when to get an IKEA Catalog Early!

IKEA Catalog History

To quote ourselves from last week’s report on Trends in the 2010 IKEA Catalog,

This year’s IKEA Catalog is the 59th and will print in 28 languages, and in 54 editions. 198 million copies will be printed, making the IKEA Catalog the most widely distributed commercial publication in the world. Over 4000 images of over 2000 products (out of a total 10,000 or so in the whole IKEA Range) grace the  375 pages of the catalog this year.  That’s a long way from the first catalog publication in 1951 which had a run of only 100,000!

IKEA Catalog History in a Nutshell:

1949 The first mail drop was made to “the people of the countryside”, promoting low-price IKEA products.

1951 Mail-order is introduced. The first IKEA Catalog has a distribution of 100,000 copies.

1952 The first IKEA Catalog completely devoted to home furnishings launched.

1953 The first IKEA furniture exhibition opens in an old factory in Älmhult, Sweden. Mail order customers can now come and see for themselves that the low prices and quality match the catalog descriptions.

1964 IKEA Catalog distribution reaches two million copies. There are now two IKEA stores: one in Älmhult, Sweden and one in Oslo, Norway.

1974 IKEA Catalog distribution reaches 13 million copies. There are now ten IKEA stores in five countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany.

1984 IKEA Catalog distribution reaches 35 million copies. There are now 66 IKEA stores in 17 countries.

1994 IKEA Catalog distribution reaches 72 million copies. There are now 124 IKEA stores in 26 countries.

1999 The first online version of the IKEA Catalog is launched on the US website. Other countries follow.

2000 IKEA Catalog production becomes digital, which means no film is used and therefore neither are any of the associated chemicals.

2005 IKEA Catalog distribution reaches 160 million copies. There are now 220 IKEA stores in 33 countries.

2008 A new smaller catalog size is tested on some markets, measuring 7.5×8.8″compared to the traditional 8.2×9.8″.

2009 The new smaller IKEA Catalog size becomes standard on all markets, and is expected to reduce paper and energy use, decrease carbon dioxide emissions and cut costs.

Towards Sustainable Production of the IKEA Catalog

Despite the vast distribution, IKEA endeavors to make the catalog publication as green and environmentally responsible as possible.  Aside from revising the distribution scheme from a blanketing method to direct mail (oh, I hear the postal workers are none too happy, though!), IKEA strives to reduce the impact by sourcing its paper from one of the highest ranked forest products company for sustainability, Stora Enso in central Sweden.  For every tree that is cut, two to four new ones are planted.

Some facts about the IKEA catalog production:

• Wood used for paper for the catalog making is traceable all the way back to the forest where it came from. The ambition is that all the paper used in the IKEA Catalog comes from forests that have been certified as responsibly managed. Last year, 74 percent of wood fibers used for catalog paper came from certified forests.
• Elementary chlorine is not used for bleaching IKEA Catalog paper. All paper suppliers must have adequate wastewater treatment systems to ensure minimum emission of pollutants, and comply with IKEA emission limits.
• Paper and printing suppliers must have a certified environmental management system and monitor resource consumption, such as water consumption, and emissions, for example of carbon dioxide (CO2).
• IKEA Catalog paper is produced in Europe and North America, while printing suppliers are spread over North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. We are working towards finding more local suppliers in order to optimize sustainability. Transportation is one of several parameters.
• The new, smaller size allows for more efficient catalog printing. It reduces paper consumption and minimizes the amount of paper that is wasted during the process, and contributes to lower transportation needs. This is one of the reasons why the fossil CO2 emissions per copy are estimated to be lower this year compared to Catalog 2009. Last year’s CO2 emissions per copy were 0.69 kg.
• Up-to-date environmental data on the IKEA Catalog is available in the annual IKEA Sustainability Report atIKEA-USA.com under About IKEA.

Get your copy of the 2010 IKEA Catalog in the mail!  Sign up here: IKEA 2010 Catalog List

Tags: ikea, IKEA Catalog, ikea catalog history, IKEA Green, IKEA History, IKEA USA

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 2:21 PM by Susan and is filed under IKEA Green, IKEA Store News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.