The shopping hell that is IKEA
Apr. 22nd, 2013 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abendgulesDoes anyone else find IKEA absolutely maddening to shop in?
First of all, every IKEA is in the suburbs. I think this is partly because they appeal to middle class shoppers and partly because they need cheap acreage for their enormous stores. You never find a 'local' IKEA. So every trip has to be planned, and even though they provide public transport directions, it's a tortuous trip every time. I think my last visit was about 2005, and I swore never again.
Last week I decided to go after work to visit IKEA. I need a new mattress, that fits the bed frame I have (landlady found the cheapest available model - neither bedframe or mattress model are still in the IKEA catalogue), and had done all my research online. I wanted to confirm which mattress to buy with a quick lie-down on the instore model before ordering.
TfL says it's 37 mins from my workplace Tube station. Liars. I takes over an hour, because the bus stops that are 'close' to the station nearest IKEA are close only for a given value of 'close'. The roads in this part of N London are in-city highways. One of the stops 'close' to Brent Cross is on the N Circular...that would be for the service that runs 3 times an hour and appears to be a milkrun for schoolkids, grannies and other 'local people'.
The return journey is worse; the bus route that took me there does not have a matching stop on the return route. Nooooo, the return route stop is on the other side of said North Circular (picture a highway size of Don Valley Parkway, only with stop lights and turning circles where it intersects other major roads). This is a 15 minute walk at least.
Desperate, I hop on the next bus that comes through and end up on a scenic tour of northwest London via Edgware Road, ending at Brondesbury (close to my first flat with Robert) in Kilburn, where I wait for the next Overground. Overground is 3-4 x an hour, and is not as fast as the Tube.
I left work at 6pm, and get home at 9pm, with only 30 mins of that in the store.
Setting aside the location, what I really really hate about shopping at IKEA is the manipulativeness of the store. It is deliberately designed to make it hard to find what you want and get out; the design obliges you to meander through displays regardless of whether that's what you want. The signs point to different areas, but don't tell you how many other displays you have to walk through - the 'maps' are deliberately disingenuous by leaving out the details.
You think you're lost (did I miss them somehow? was the first display the entire display for beds?) but you know you haven't passed what you're looking for, so you have to forge on.
If you knew how far you had to go to find mattresses, for instance, you'd go through the 'exit' direction rather than the entrance, becuse the journey is shorter.
The only other place I find this manipulative layout is in the duty-free shops at Heathrow, where you have to wind around the perfume and booze store to reach the seating in the 'food court'.
All stores aim to distract, tempt and create associations between products based on where they position products, what height they're at, what they're next to. But the inability to find what you want quickly backfires, for me, in an IKEA and I'm irritated enough by it that I'm not cheerfully distracted by displays.
So it takes me about 15 mins of stomping before I reach the display of mattresses for lying on to test. I spend about 10 mins testing, and then another 5 minutes trying to leave the store.
The upshot: got my 10 mins of mattress-testing in, and have ordered it for delivery. And hope never to darken their doorways again.
First of all, every IKEA is in the suburbs. I think this is partly because they appeal to middle class shoppers and partly because they need cheap acreage for their enormous stores. You never find a 'local' IKEA. So every trip has to be planned, and even though they provide public transport directions, it's a tortuous trip every time. I think my last visit was about 2005, and I swore never again.
Last week I decided to go after work to visit IKEA. I need a new mattress, that fits the bed frame I have (landlady found the cheapest available model - neither bedframe or mattress model are still in the IKEA catalogue), and had done all my research online. I wanted to confirm which mattress to buy with a quick lie-down on the instore model before ordering.
TfL says it's 37 mins from my workplace Tube station. Liars. I takes over an hour, because the bus stops that are 'close' to the station nearest IKEA are close only for a given value of 'close'. The roads in this part of N London are in-city highways. One of the stops 'close' to Brent Cross is on the N Circular...that would be for the service that runs 3 times an hour and appears to be a milkrun for schoolkids, grannies and other 'local people'.
The return journey is worse; the bus route that took me there does not have a matching stop on the return route. Nooooo, the return route stop is on the other side of said North Circular (picture a highway size of Don Valley Parkway, only with stop lights and turning circles where it intersects other major roads). This is a 15 minute walk at least.
Desperate, I hop on the next bus that comes through and end up on a scenic tour of northwest London via Edgware Road, ending at Brondesbury (close to my first flat with Robert) in Kilburn, where I wait for the next Overground. Overground is 3-4 x an hour, and is not as fast as the Tube.
I left work at 6pm, and get home at 9pm, with only 30 mins of that in the store.
Setting aside the location, what I really really hate about shopping at IKEA is the manipulativeness of the store. It is deliberately designed to make it hard to find what you want and get out; the design obliges you to meander through displays regardless of whether that's what you want. The signs point to different areas, but don't tell you how many other displays you have to walk through - the 'maps' are deliberately disingenuous by leaving out the details.
You think you're lost (did I miss them somehow? was the first display the entire display for beds?) but you know you haven't passed what you're looking for, so you have to forge on.
If you knew how far you had to go to find mattresses, for instance, you'd go through the 'exit' direction rather than the entrance, becuse the journey is shorter.
The only other place I find this manipulative layout is in the duty-free shops at Heathrow, where you have to wind around the perfume and booze store to reach the seating in the 'food court'.
All stores aim to distract, tempt and create associations between products based on where they position products, what height they're at, what they're next to. But the inability to find what you want quickly backfires, for me, in an IKEA and I'm irritated enough by it that I'm not cheerfully distracted by displays.
So it takes me about 15 mins of stomping before I reach the display of mattresses for lying on to test. I spend about 10 mins testing, and then another 5 minutes trying to leave the store.
The upshot: got my 10 mins of mattress-testing in, and have ordered it for delivery. And hope never to darken their doorways again.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 07:02 pm (UTC)We often go there just to meander around aimlessly looking at their imaginative designs; especially their kids' stuff, which often has a touch of whimsy about it. Nice in-store restaurants, too (the meat at the Canadian stores is even horse-free :). We do avoid it at the high family-traffic times, though - it can be a screaming stroller-nightmare zone on Saturday afternoons.
Of course the fact that I also love McDonald's and Walmart is added testament to my qualities of discernment...
no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-23 12:24 am (UTC)The closest to me is about an hour away by car; public transit isn't even an option from where I live, though I've seen a bus stop just outside the parking lot. On the few occasions I've wanted to make a shortcut, I've had no difficulty in figuring out where to cut through, but I am one of those folks who builds mental maps relatively easily. I also enjoy their bit-of-whimsy in product design and am the kind of person who likes being amused at really ugly design (because woah they have some of that too).
no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 07:19 pm (UTC)That's better than the bus that runs to our nearest IKEA (in Waldorf, of John Jakob Astor fame). The Saturday busses run once every two hours. Timing your shopping so that you don't end up waiting an irritatingly long time (usually with an irritated toddler) is tricky!
We've been to IKEAs enough times in the last 18 months or so, though, that we know what's where and what sort of things we're looking for, which means that the last time we went, we were able to go in, go straight to what we needed to look at, make our purchases, and get out. We also did it during the week, so we could leave Gwen at daycare, when the busses run once an hour, so other than the fact that we (as usual) bought way more than is convenient to carry home by public transportation and yet we did so anyway, it was a relatively painless trip.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 10:46 pm (UTC)Maps, catalogue, and shortcuts
Date: 2013-04-23 04:24 am (UTC)Of course a long bus ride is not fun. I have a long car ride.
Yogurt cone machine was broken this weekend. Sad.
Re: Maps, catalogue, and shortcuts
Date: 2013-04-23 06:54 am (UTC)Never at a weekend.
Never ever ever during school holidays.
Always during the day, not the evening.
I am used to using the shortcuts through the store to get to what I want to, and they are on the maps they provide. I've done straffing runs before! But yeah, they're not posted well if you don't know where to look.
Eve loves the kids stuff too! They have seriously funky toys/decor.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-23 08:33 pm (UTC)You've heard me rant about addresses that don't refer to a street but to where one would be on that street, if there were not several blocks of parking lot to navigate between the street and the door.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-23 09:01 pm (UTC)It was even worse when I had to go there on crutches on my own. No one was willing to help one little bit!
They do have good points but mostly I just find myself getting grumpy and more annoyed!