The mail order catalogs of Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward were as innovative in the late 1800's as Amazon is today, bringing retail shopping to customers who otherwise had relatively little access to the wide variety of goods available in major cities. Those catalogs lasted more than a century before giving way to other business models.
Now, IKEA is discontinuing its catalog. The WSJ has the story:
The IKEA Catalog Defined Home for Millions. Now It’s Gone. Flat-pack giant says it will discontinue publication of the book as readership declines By Saabira Chaudhuri
"IKEA’s decision to stop publishing its annual catalog marks the end of a tome that served as much as an aspirational lifestyle guide for millions as it did a marketing tool for the flat-pack furniture giant.
"After 70 years, the catalog had become a relic in the digital age, the company said, calling the decision “emotional but rational.” The 2020 edition, which was sent out earlier this year, will be the last. The catalog will also no longer be published online.
"Like an international version of the Sears catalog, which ceased publication in 1993, the IKEA book sold not only housewares, but a lifestyle."
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