Ikea UK is 21 today

[Martin]

and the whole country (plus quite a few others by the look of it) has gone there to get 21% off everything, a war zone; cleaned out, avoided a fist fight to get new wardrobes / tables /blinds etc and saved about £70. And the special pasta for £1 in the restaurant 

I was half expecting to see people taking sofas back on the tram to Croydon..

[alchemy]

A new Ikea was recently opened in Perth. To our eternal shame it's the largest Ikea store in the Southern Hemisphere 

Even more shameful is that the car park is chock a block on a Saturday 

[Adrian]

IKEA is a vision of hell

[rogerzilla]

Wasn't its founder once a Nazi sympathiser?

<googles>

Oh yes.

Godwin's Law in 4 posts 

[TimO]

LOL, I quite like Ikea (sorry), but not when it's busy.  One of the good things about the Croydon one, which is now about a mile from me, is that it stays open until midnight, at which time it isn't all that busy!

(Apparently I'm also exactly twice, to the day, the age of Ikea UK!)

[Martin]

The Croydon store learnt quite a lot from the previous ones by building short cuts between eg lounges and kitchen utensils on the basis that most people have lost the will to live far less actually buy anything (apart from photo frames and paper lampshades) by the time they reach the ground floor.

And the way they label up the items with a warehouse location which bears no relationship to what's on the shelf,in order to get you to walk back through the sea of abandoned trollies back up to the showroom through the posters and pot plants (twice)

I've heard that the customer service is also non-existent in Swedish stores.

The one good thing about Ikea is that on a weekend a substantial proportion of the traffic of South London is stuck in the car park for several hours.

I have a Utopian vision that eventually they will branch out into other areas and the entire Valley Park site will by taken over by the company; You'll be able to buy furniture clothes food bicycles cars, go to the cinema; probably even have a baby, without ever leaving the site.

[Adrian]

Oh and those suspiciously cheep hot dogs they sell at the exit, that's a boilled raindeer knob.

[Naggers]

I'm a bit of a fan of Ikea but yesterday it would have been the last place on earth I'd have gone.
I'll quite happily forego the 21% off to go on a day without 6 mile traffic jams and fights in the aisles.

[rogerzilla]

Do they still sell the Skum sweets at the checkout?  Apparently they taste OK.

[Naggers]

Love the boilled raindeer knob's too. 35p

[andygates]

I dunno why "eternal shame"... the stuff's good for the price and has silly names.  It fills a niche and the reindeer knob kebabs are yummy too. 

Surely the only shame should be that your locals can't compete.  C'est la globalisme.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Oh and those suspiciously cheep hot dogs they sell at the exit, that's a boilled raindeer knob.

As far as cheap hotdogs go, their veggie ones are lovely in a crap hotdog sort of way, but they put them in the same bun as the meat ones even though they're a couple of inches shorter so you end up with inches of empty bread at each end.

I prefer to go to Ikea on Friday nights - it's always quieter then. And then I come home and have a lie down - it exhausts me.

[TimO]

Oh and those suspiciously cheep hot dogs they sell at the exit, that's a boilled raindeer knob.

I prefer to go to Ikea on Friday nights - it's always quieter then. And then I come home and have a lie down - it exhausts me.

You should have a lie down in the bed section, just testing...

I find midweek nights to be the least busy, how many people go shopping at Ikea at 11pm on a Wednesday!  I could probably push my shopping home in a trolley now, I'm about 0.75 miles away as the crow flies.  That would be one way to avoid the traffic!

[pcolbeck]

IKEA have cleaned up for the simple reason that their stuff is cheap, reasonably stylish and easy to assemble. I have never had a duff bit of furniture from them bar some water damaged panels for a kitchen and they delivered replacements no questions asked the next day. Top service. Remember what life was like before IKEA ? Habitat for anything reasonably modern looking (but it was still very expensive) and awful flat pack stuff from cheaper stores that didn't go together properly.
Mind you you wouldn't find me dead at an IKEA on a bank holiday or when there is a special promotion like this 21st birthday bash on. Once every couple of years or so is often enough for me.

[domesticated ape]

I like Ikea, especially on weekdays when you get free cups of tea if you have a loyalty card:) I did make the mistake of going there on a bank holiday once though, we were just going to 'pop in' on the way home from somewhere and it ended up taking half the afternoon

[hellymedic]

Do they still sell the Skum sweets at the checkout?  Apparently they taste OK.

Isn't skum Scandiwegic for foam?

[rogerzilla]

Could be marshmallows, I suppose.

[Mike J]

I've never been in an Ikea store in my life, yet.  So its interesting reading about them.

[CAMRAMan]

Do they still sell the Skum sweets at the checkout?  Apparently they taste OK.

Isn't skum Scandiwegic for foam?

Froth, foam, or bubbles are the closest. If the choccie is Aero-like, then it's a close, though rather typically IKEA translation.

[pcolbeck]

So skum means the same as scum in English then except in English it has taken on a bit of a nasty connotation but it was originally the foamy bit on water.

[mukkinese]

i really don't have a problem with ikea so long as I go there late at night on a non popular day on my own.

in and out.give me the list and i'll get it. I hate meandering in there. Thats what the internet is for...

[Mr Larrington]

IKEA is just another shop.  Also the branch in ["The Death Of The Soul^{Mr Sunshine}"] is close enough to Larrington Towers that it can be avoided at peak times.

[Charlotte]

I have often considered staging a flash mob in an Ikea.

3:47pm on a Sunday afternoon, everyone converges on the checkouts wearing some kind of item that will allow them to recognise other mobbers.  Say a hat.

4.02pm.  At the sound of a whistle, pick a "partner" also wearing a hat and start a highly animated and very loud relationship argument with that person until 4:07pm when another whistle goes and everyone ends the argument with the phrase...

..well you can go back to your bloody mother then!

4:02pm and ten seconds: disperse quietly.

I suppose the big question is, would anyone actually notice?

[LEE]

It's simple.

IKEA at opening time on a weekday = Good

IKEA at lunctime at the weekend = Bad

The one in Bristol is deserted at opening time on a Saturday even but you need to be there as the doors open.  Then it's straight to the restaurant for a 99p cooked brekky before grabbing what you came for and legging it before the whole of the South-West arrives.  Because of the forced-route nature of the store, if you arrive when it's empty then it stays empty for the whole of your meandering trip.

Last time I bought a little, lightweight, cable cycle combination lock for a few quid.  Perfect for cafe stops on Audaxes, a nice little surprise find.  
Most of their stuff is well made (for flat pack) and pretty cheap but can be embarrasing to ask for without being slapped:

"Excuse me Miss, I'd like a Phnuck, two Grobes and a Schlack"

Note.  I have also been there on a Sunday afternoon and I know that Hell would be a nicer place to be.

[Mr Larrington]

Note.  I have also been there on a Sunday afternoon and I know that Hell would be a nicer place to be.

When we were remodelling the Grand Bedchamber of Larrington Towers, web-golfing revealed that some of the Stuffs we wanted were available from Neasden and the rest from Thurrock.  We were obliged to visit both, on the same day.

Wars have been fought for less.