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Higher costs: Ikea defends horrendous price increases

2023-01-18T15:35:00.478Z


Prices are also rising sharply in the furniture trade. Ikea is particularly generous: the Swedes have made individual products more expensive by up to 131 percent. The group now has to justify itself for this.


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Price increases by up to 131 percent: Ikea is heavily involved in inflation

Photo: Markus Schreiber/ AP

The furniture retailer Ikea justified its sometimes sharp price increases with increased costs for purchasing, transport and energy.

The "Bild" newspaper compared the current prices of selected products with those from the previous year and came up with increases of up to 131 percent for the "Nesttun" bed frame, for example.

Ikea classics such as the "Billy" bookcase (53 percent) and the "Pax" wardrobe (50 percent) are also significantly more expensive than a year ago.

Ikea did not comment on the individual prices on Wednesday.

In the past fiscal year 2022, it was not possible to avoid adjusting the prices for parts of the range, according to a written statement.

Previously, the company absorbed most of the cost increases in the global supply chain itself.

Since autumn 2022 and thus in the current 2023 financial year, prices have been reduced again when the supply chains have stabilized and inventories have improved.

The largest furniture retailer in Germany did not want to rule out further price increases: "Nevertheless, we are not immune to the current economic challenges, such as significantly increased purchase prices, not only for our range, but also for energy and transport."

According to the furniture and kitchen trade association (BVDM), there have also been sharp price increases in the other furniture stores.

The furniture factories have increased their sales prices across the board by between 20 and 30 percent, said BVDM President

Markus Meyer

of the German Press Agency.

There were bottlenecks in industrial upholstery foams and wood.

Here the furniture industry is in direct competition with pellet manufacturers.

In addition, there were no imports from Russia and Belarus, which drove up the prices for wood of European origin.

According to association estimates, the German furniture trade suffered a nominal high single-digit loss in sales in 2022 because customers were very uncertain about the future burden of energy prices.

"Uncertainty is the worst thing for us," Meyer said.

There were no catch-up effects like in the Corona year 2021.

Demand has only stabilized somewhat since November, but has by no means reached the level before the Ukraine war.

In its inflation basket for furniture, lighting, appliances and household accessories, the Federal Statistical Office shows an increase of 7.1 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year.

cr/dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2023-01-18

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