In 1934, designer Kem Weber pioneered flat-pack furniture with his Airline Chair. It sold for $24.75 but he only managed to move around 200 of them. From Collectors Weekly:
"It's probably the first example of a piece of furniture sent home in a box that was intended to be put together by the consumer," says (University of Texas design history professor Christopher) Long. "It was revolutionary," he says, "absolutely revolutionary." Today, thanks to Ikea, assemble-it-yourself furniture sounds obvious, but Ikea was not founded until 1943, and did not rise to international retail prominence until the 1960s and '70s.
"Weber certainly sold more outlandish designs than that," says Long, "so I think the chair's failure had a lot to do with the fact that people in the furniture industry simply didn't think they could sell it."
"Kem Weber: The Mid-Century Modern Designer Who Paved the Way for IKEA"
