IKEA

IKEA is a Swedish home furnishings retailer. It has 202 stores in 32 countries, most of them in Europe, the rest in the United States, Canada, Asia and Australia. More than 20 are scheduled to open during 2005. IKEA is one of the few store chains to have locations in Israel as well as in other nations in the Middle East.

Store format

Newer IKEA stores are usually very large blue boxes with few windows. They are often designed around a mandatory "one-way" layout which forces consumers to traverse nearly all parts of the store before reaching the cashier or check-out stands. The sequence involves going through furniture showrooms (showroom) and housewares (market-hall) first, then the warehouse where one collects flatpacks for products seen in the showrooms, and then the cashier.

Related Topics:
Cashier - Check-out stands

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This design is intended to make customers encounter products which they might not have thought to look for, but has the disadvantage of inconveniencing consumers who already know what they want to buy and just want to return to the warehouse area.

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Recently, in some stores, shortcuts have been introduced between various sections, making travel time through the store much shorter if necessary. However, though they may be indicated on store maps, these shortcuts are often not obvious so an inexperienced IKEA shopper is likely to overlook them and travel through the whole layout of the store.

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Whilst the original design involved the warehouse on the lower level and the showroom and markethall on the upper, some stores (including the Leeds, UK store) are single-level bungalow-style stores. Some operate separate additional warehouses for the larger or less popular flatpacks to keep the size of the customer warehouse down (and therefore less daunting) and allow more stock to be kept on-site at any given time. Unfortunately this occasionally results in customers being unable to find the goods they paid for at the cashier without direction from staff and the impression of queueing twice (once at the cashier, once at the external warehouse). However, there are few complaints about being able to collect goods quicker from the customer warehouses.

Related Topics:
Leeds - Queueing

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Many stores include restaurants serving typically Swedish food, and beverages such as lingonberry juice. The restaurant area is usually the one place in the store where there are large windows. Outside of Sweden these restaurants are sometimes complemented by mini-shops selling Swedish-made, Swedish-style groceries. As would be expected with IKEA, you can buy IKEA's specialities, such as Swedish meatballs, in parts (i.e. the ingredients) at these stores and assemble it (i.e. simple, straightforward food preparation) at home. Currently in Canada, IKEA is featuring a $1 breakfast including scrambled eggs, sausage, and a roll. It is quite popular and is only availible from store opening to 11:00 AM.

Related Topics:
Restaurant - Swedish food - Lingonberry - Swedish meatballs

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