Ikea has more than 250 stores in 34 countries, with over 310 million people visiting the low-cost home products retailer every year. In Britain, according to one estimate, almost twice as many people visit an Ikea store on Sundays as attend church. Not one percentile of Ikea’s annual visitor figures is likely to come from Lebanon anytime soon however, or indeed are Lebanese likely to read one of the 130 million copies of Ikea’s catalogue that were distributed last year. Neither is attendance at Lebanese places of worship likely to be rivaled by people opting to unpack and reassemble one of Ikea’s DIY wardrobes. But why not? After all, the Swedish-created Ikea has had a presence in the Middle East since 1983 in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait in 1984, Dubai in 1991, and in Israel since 2001. In all locations the store has been a veritable hit, with enough demand in
