[freddie_mercury]

> And behind the scenes, work on the next catalogue had already begun – a process lasting several months and involving planning, construction of interiors, photography and filming, all led by catalogue manager Mia Olsson Tunér.

It is naive to assume printing costs are the only costs involved.

I feel comfortable assuming IKEA had a better understanding of the economic fundamentals of the catalogue than HN commenters.

[degrews]

No one is assuming printing costs are the only costs to produce the catalogue. The point of pricing the catalogue at printing costs is to cover the marginal cost of offering the catalogue for sale. The fixed costs of producing the calendar are incurred either way.

[Alupis]

A company I worked for stopped doing physical catalogs too - after having done so for a very long time. The cost to produce the catalog was insane, and had quite a bit of dedicated staff working on it full-time. Making a catalog is a specialized skillset, and has little overlap with the business' core competencies, such as website administration.

Over time, the revenue attributed with the physical catalog declined year over year. People said they wanted the catalog, but it didn't translate into attributable sales. The ones that did order from the catalog were often the smallest, insignificant orders the company took in. The website and online advertising are where customers gravitated towards, and remain today.

The amount of people that actually want a physical catalog, even for IKEA, I would wager pales in comparison to the amonut of people that want to browse the catalog on their phone or tablet. Pricing changes, stock comes and goes, products get discontinued, colors/materials are changed, etc. The website is always up-to-date, the physical catalog... is not.

When I read comments like yours, I interpret them as people wanting nastolgic items more than marketing materials or ordering guides. The costs for the company are just too high to produce those anymore; well over $2 per catalog someone up-thread mentioned - we're talking more like $10-$20+ these days (not accounting for anything except print costs) for a full-color, glossy/professional catalog with hundreds of pages.

I have serious doubts IKEA printing catalogs today would garner any new business. They would give away (or perhaps sell) some copies to existing, long-time customers with a fond memory of the brand and their catalogs - and I'm afraid that's it.

[ghaff]

I suppose on the plus side, my mailbox doesn't get completely stuffed with catalogs before Christmas every year. That aside, I do sort of miss leafing through all the catalogs I used to get.

[zeroq]

Same way as IKEA restaurants were serving decent quality food for dimes.

It was business decision. People were thinking - we have a day off, we could go there and there, do some shopping, and then we go there for food, or we could go to the IKEA and eat there.

If you're "slave to the IKEA" and want to cherish your free day with consumerism, it was a no brainer if you wanted to shop on a budget and eat for free.

Unforntuantely, catalogues are gone and so are days of cheap food in IKEA.

[aegirth]

> Unforntuantely, catalogues are gone and so are days of cheap food in IKEA.

Depends on where you are. my Ikea still has all the cheap food you and I remember. Could be something stateside (if you are there).

[kryptiskt]

There are other stuff that goes into it. But they still do nearly all of that for the web site, so a print catalogue in addition wouldn't be such a massive undertaking.

The problem really is the distribution costs, it used to be delivered to every home in Sweden, doing it on that scale is expensive. If they were satisfied with doing a print catalogue for the biggest fans, it would be an insignificant cost.