The company was started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad (1926-2018) when he was seventeen years old as a mostly mail-order sales business. From the beginning, the company was selling items such as pens, picture frames, clocks, jewellery, nylon stocking, wallets and whatnot. After an order, Kamprad would often deliver it himself. By 1947 it started selling furniture and by 1958 the first IKEA store was opened in Älmhult, Småland. The first stores outside Sweden were opened in Norway (1963) and Denmark (1969). The stores spread to other parts of Europe in the 1970s, with the first store outside Scandinavia opening in Switzerland (1973), followed by West Germany (1974).