Gordon and Carole Segal opened a store on Wells Street in Chicago in 1962, in an old elevator factory.
They could not afford shelving.
So they left the merchandise sitting in the shipping crates and barrels it arrived in, and sold out of those. Then they named the company after the fixtures they could not afford to buy.
That is the company’s own account of where the name came from, and it is the most useful thing it has ever said about itself.
Because sixty-four years later the entire business still runs on the same principle. How the thing is arranged is the thing. And in 2026, with furniture prices actually falling, that principle is the only reason this store can charge what it charges.