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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

Why nothing in the African and South American continent. Morocco is a perfectly viable, stable economy. I would envision the same for Tunisia, Egypt, Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa. Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil (import laws are nuts) and Uruguay as well.

I wonder what goes into deciding when a country is suitable to have an IKEA? Is it corruption, stability, economy?

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IKEA got burnt pretty badly in Russia by (alleged) corruption [0]. I think they'll play it safe for a while.

[0] http://www.theage.com.au/world/corruption-halts-ikea-in-russ...

North Africa is a stable and dynamic market, since these countries are yet investing in infrastructure, from an article dated in 2008 , it was going to open a store in Algiers -Algeria- , but nothing has yet happened. source : http://www.ccmp.fr/collection-ccmp/cas-ikea-en-algerie-une-c...

Maybe import laws are a factor, but most likely they haven't entered Brazil because the local competition [1] wouldn't make it profitable.

[1] http://www.tokstok.com.br/

IKEA would blow Tokstok and the like out of the water in both quality and price.

Besides crazy import laws, what I see as the major blocker there is that Brazilians are not very fond of self-service stores and of having to carry their purchased stuff home and assemble it themselves.

Of course IKEA could try what they do in places like China, where they partner with a local company for delivery/assemble. But then maybe the price for that service would be a factor.

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