Understanding Profit Margins and Tax Strategies in Retail

IKEA may be the most singular company we’ve ever studied on Acquired. They’re a globally scaled, $50B annual revenue company with no direct competitors — yet have only ~5% market share. They’re one of the largest retailers in the world — yet sell only their own products. They generate a few billion in free cash flow every year — yet have no shareholders. And oh yeah, they also sell hot dogs cheaper than Costco! (Sort of.)

Tune in for an episode flat-packed with counterintuitive lessons about how this folksy mail order business from the Swedish countryside came into your living rooms (and bedrooms and dining rooms and kitchens and bathrooms and patios and garages and backyards) all over the globe!

Sponsors:

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsn
Huntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntress

Links:

• Please take our 2024 Acquired Survey if you have a minute. It'd mean the world to us!
• The Testament of a Furniture Dealer
• Our past episodes on Costco, Walmart, Amazon, LVMH and Hermès
• Worldly Partners Multi-Decade IKEA Study
• Episode sources

Carve Outs:

• Detroiters
• The 11-inch iPad Pro
• The QB School
• Ice Cube at the World Series

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC