IKEA ENDS RUN FOR ICONIC PRINT CATALOG

Sellers are looking to catapult an unlikely item — the once ubiquitous Ikea catalog — into the trove of uncommon collectibles that beckon nostalgia and grow in value.

“The very last Ikea catalog ever,” a recent eBay listing reads, offering the 2021 edition for $17. “In perfect unread condition. Stored flat in acid-free magazine-protector.” It joins a growing list of Ikea catalogs from former years, including one from 1974, printed in Swedish. (Yours for $549.)

Pointing to greater attention to its website, Ikea announced in December that 2021 would be the last printed catalog of its colossal supply of Swedishnamed furniture and home goods.

“Consumption and customer behaviors have changed,” Konrad Grüss, managing director for Inter Ikea Systems B.V., said in a statement in December,

“and Ikea is already increasing digital investments while volumes and interest in the catalog have decreased.”

Over the last two decades, the popularity of catalogs declined before some companies reignited them, remaking them as creative pieces of print work primarily intended to inspire consumers, said Jonathan D. Zhang, an assistant professor of marketing at Colorado State University.

“The future of catalogs is not going to be a product catalog almost like Sears or Ikea,” Zhang said. Consumers were less likely to be drawn into bland product books that listed home appliances, for example, compared with catalogs that highlighted beautiful or luxurious items, he said. Popular catalogs, like those from the high-end home furnishings company Restoration Hardware, also offered a sense of aspiration by selling stately $2,000 desks and $4,000 sofas, said Zhang, who wrote a 2020 article for

Harvard Business Review titled “Why Catalogs Are Making a Comeback.”

The Ikea catalog, with its famously affordable $10 end table, did not.

“It’s very utilitarian, and it’s very inexpensive,” he said. “Because their furniture is also utilitarian, it might not also evoke pleasure and emotion. The best catalogs are the ones that evoke emotion. They almost allow you to live vicariously through the photos if you can achieve that connection.”

The Internet is good at playing the short game, but print products, he said, are interested in the “medium to long game.” So even Wayfair, Bonobos, Birchbox and Amazon are now investing in catalogs.

Ikea’s choice to retire the catalog came after the company reported a “solid financial result” of about $48 billion in fiscal year 2020.