This paper analyzes the complementarity between investment and trade within a specific framework. It shows that a services multinational, as IKEA, can stimulate trade in goods between its home country and the host countries, by modifying consumers preferences in the latter. We are able to isolate this change in consumer preferences given IKEA specific logistic organization. In order to show that IKEA can have an export promotion role, we compare IKEA impact on trade with the one of embassies. We use data for 1995-2015, on IKEA locations, bilateral country trade, embassies location and standard gravity controls. We find that IKEA fosters trade in goods between the countries it locates in and the Scandinavian countries, and this more than opening an embassy in the former countries.