After two days of trying I finally got in! My first attempted was yesterday, but after getting there and seeing a huge line with a wait of roughly a hour, just to get inside, I opted to head home to do something "more constructive" with my Saturday. But I decided to head back tonight and see if my luck was any better.


Sure enough it was. We arrived at around 5:00 and instantly got parking and made it inside to start shopping in about 10 minutes.

Aside from being a great store with really cool furniture at unbelievable prices the main reason for this post is to discuss the planning and marketing genius that are tucked into the walls of this store. When you first enter the building you are greeted with a big yellow bag, a pencil, and a map with a shopping list on the back. You are then herded up an escalator to arrive at the showroom floor.

The showroom is just what the name implies, a huge floor showcasing all of the products in "real world" settings. This itself is genius because it starts to put ideas in the customers mind of how the furniture works as a whole to create a room. Most furniture showrooms you walk into show several different kinds of sofas, chairs, tables, etc.. all scattered around, and none doing the others any justice. While you will find some areas of IKEA set up like this, the majority of the showroom is arranged into mini living spaces (bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, offices, etc..). By doing this customers can see how the designer has used not only the furniture but also accessories, lighting, and art (all sold at IKEA) to create an environment. Intermingled between each mini living space are larger living areas. In these areas the designers have created entire homes containing a kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and closet space in a defined square footage. Again this does the best job I have ever seen a showroom do of showcasing your products used in the "real world" and working together.

Aside from using the showroom to showcase the products correctly they have also done there homework in guiding the customer through the store. You start off in the Living Room then work your way through Wall Units and Media Storage to Kitchens and Dining Rooms, on to Offices, Bedrooms, and Bathrooms, and ending up in the Restaurant & Cafe. The entire time customers have the ability to skip through areas by taking short cuts, but even these "short cuts" take customers past products that may also be of interest. And because the experience is so enticing I doubt few first time shoppers stray from the beaten path. Another beautiful thing about the showroom is that you don't actually purchase anything in this area, it is only for browsing and looking at the products.

Once you are done looking you are taken down to the "Marketplace" where the real shopping begins. While the Marketplace doesn't do the same job of displaying the products like the showroom does (it isn't meant to) it does do just as good a job guiding the customer through the store making sure you pass back by everything you saw when you were upstairs. When you finally get to the check out you probably have more items then you originally planned for. Again, IKEA has this covered. They have teamed up with rental companies to provide you with trucks for getting everything home. They have numbers of contractors (again that they have partnered with) that can assemble everything for you. And they have plenty of registers to finally get you out of the store and on your way.

All in all I think IKEA has created the best customer experience you could ask for. Any designer that is focused on user experiences should really take a trip to the store to do nothing more then walk around and take notes, but make sure to bring cash or charge because they don't accept checks :) !