h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As a resident of Sweden my home consists of cirka 80% IKEA stuff. I can put a cupboard together with my eyes closed and I have roughly 20 little hexagon keys that always come with any IKEA furniture. Once, as a school project, I had to furnish an appartment with a limited budget and IKEA was then the obvious choice.

The result of the two aformentiond facts is that I've spent a substatial amount of my time in IKEA stores and have never been bothered by long queues. Nor have I ever had to go all the way through the store to find a specific item as there are short-cuts everywhere.

/ R the

Maybe the Swedes have the queues licked but speaking for the UK they are a major problem. I've used three of the UK's branches (Warrington, Nottingham and Birmingham) and have never, ever spent less than twenty minutes waiting in a queue for a till. The record was four minutes short of an hour - fifty six minutes queuing to pay for a bookcase and a box of lightbulbs. I hasn't put me off using the place, however - but I'm particularly careful to avoid certain times of day. It was a well known fact in the regiong that when the Warrington branch opened for the first time, on a Sunday the traffic queue would stretch out of the car park, onto the bypass, around a couple of roundabouts, along a spur road, down a sliproad and created a mile or more of stationary traffic on the M6, for a total queue length of over seven miles.

The store in Burbank California is HUGE and even if you take the shortcuts, you will have a hike through all sorts of interesting stuff.

The lines for checkout here are also very long. Only the fact that this IKEA is near a large mall makes for enough parking spaces, without the mall's spaces, you'd spend even more queue time just to get in the store.

I can't say that I've found the queues being that long in the Edinburgh branch of IKEA. But then again, that may be because there's usually a couple of friends going there together, and the waiting before the checkouts gives you time to talk about and compare the things you've bought.

The IKEA I usually go to (the one at Barkarby, Stockholm) is very large but they have an absolutley gigantic carpark so parking is never a probelm (even though it can be a bit of a hike to the entrance sometimes).

There are lots of tills and always enough open so that the queues aren't too long.

Perhaps this IKEA was designed to be especially customer friendly as it is so close to the capital city and can get very packed with poeple, especially during the holidays.

/ R the

The one in Edinburgh is quite useful by being open until 10pm which puts a bit of a pressure releaase on the queues but i still try to go in the middle of week days.

I have been quite good and in the past couple of weeks have had to visit IKEA a couple of times to buy boxes as i am moving and only spent and extra 2quid on day and 5quid another. My policy is to know what i want before hand and how much it is and then only take that amount of cash

R. Barkarby? Is that North or south of Stockholm? I know there's one in Fittja (south), and one out in the vicinity of Järfälla (north). I also know that I've only been to the one in Fittja, and that's a pretty massive store as well. Same as the one in Älmhult. And IKEA is always bad for my economy.

MrsCloud, you're right that it's good that the Edinburgh one is open until 10PM. Me and a couple of friends went to IKEA the last friday before Christmas last year, and we got there failry late in the evening, but that didn't matter, as it was open until 10pm. We had a nice stroll round the entire store, picking up lots of useless stuff that cost lots of money, and feeling generally happy about it. Really strange.
Good tip to not bring more money than you actually need. Problem with that is if you have a credit or debit card tucked into your wallet, and don't realise that until you're att eh checkout.

It's the one in Järfälla, near Jakobsberg, next to the Stockholm Quality Outlet (a dumb name if there ever was one).

I read once that IKEA has a policiy of buying the entire building that they are going to put their store in and then renting the rest of the space out to other shops that might interest the rest of the family while the mother/father is shopping for furniture. The Barkarby one has a toy shop, a car-stuff shop, a café and a sports shop next door so there is something for everyone in the family.

/ R the

The Car stuff shop is Micro, isn't it? They do a lot of business together, those two store chains. There's a Micro car parts store at most of the IKEA stores I've been to in Sweden. And as far as buying the whole house they're going to be in, that's good marketing, and also away to get some more money from rents and stuff.

The IKEA in Birmingham adds to the problems on the M6. Junction 9(the one you have to use to get there) is now shut on certain days, and so it is best to listen to local radio if going there. There is nothing more annoying than getting to the Junction and not being allowed off!
The queues don't help the M5 junction which is the one before.

Is anyone else irritated by the latest adverts - I preferred the chuck out the chintz ones.

I have to say that I kinda liked the "Come to us, or we'll come to you." adverts. The guys are actually driving around in a Swedish-registered Volvo (this information is provided to this forum sourtesy of the BUI, Board of Useless Information).

I don't think many of the stores have long queues if you go at about 6ish. I live 20 minutes away from the Nottingham store, so can pop in after work and it's always deserted then.

Daytime is bad - full of houswives...

Maybe that's why I've never had any problems at the Edinburgh store. I've only been there at night. Left Greenock between 5-6pm, so reached Edinburgh at around 7-7:30....

Don't even think about visiting the Croydon store at the weekend, the Ikea traffic jams up the A23 and although there is lots of parking (and nice chaps who offer to wash your car while you are shopping) the queues are really off-putting. A few times I have gone round the store picking up the small bits and bobs as I go and the abandoned my shopping at the sight of hour-long queues at the checkout. I would rather have an hour of my life than 3 picture frames for a quid.

It is usually best to go early in the morning on a weekday towards the beginning of the week - although this requires being off work.

The Swedish IKEA catalogue has just come out, the newspapers always make a big event out of it, can't imagine why. What really gets me is how TIDY every room is. There are a few artfully placed magazines on a coffee table (glass top, of course) and a snazzy picture frame with a photo of the georgeous husband/wife in. Everything is in white and glass (and naturally spotless). I (and I don't think anyone else either) could ever live in place like that without having a nerveous breakdown. I would like to see some more realistic rooms in the catalogue.


/R

True. But then again, it wouldn't be much good to show a room where the furniture that you want to sell in your catalogue is covered in magazines, dirty laundry and plates with the remains of last nights chinese take away. Or does it just look like that at my place??

It doesn't need to be overly messy, it's just that I think it better the give individual pictures of the furniture in question rather than photograph it from an awkward angle so that nobody can see it properly anyway. If they showed each piece individually they could organize it properly in the catalogue with all the beds together, all the bookcases together etc. etc...it would be so much easier.

And another thing, why don't they have a proper page for clocks. I know they have clocks in the shop but there they are spread out all over the store so you have to go *all* the way around to find them. Wich is a pity cause the clocks they have are simple yet look quite nice.
Thank you for letting me let off some steam
/R