The Daily BuzzIkea to make major change with new store design
Ikea’s maze-like store layout are as iconic as its meatballs or blue-and-yellow color scheme. But the confusing floor formation could be on the way out.
Ikea is opening new stores in England to address a common complaint: the stores are too far away. With some shoppers facing a 2-hour commute just to get to the furniture emporium, Ikea is building what it calls “Order and Collection Points,” which would be one-tenth the size of a regular Ikea store, according to the Daily Record. The reduced size would mean it’s impractical to organize the floors with the same all-over-the-place design that we currently see in Ikeas around the world.
Asked if it would have the maze-like layout, a spokeswoman said: “I can’t say for sure but it is unlikely.”
The current layout seems haphazard, but a 2011 study by lan Penn, director of the Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment at University College London, found there’s actually a very good reason for the sway Ikea sets up its shops.
“You’re directed through their marketplace area where a staggering amount of purchases are impulse buys, things like lightbulbs or a cheap casserole that you weren’t planning on getting. Here the trick is that because the layout is so confusing you know you won’t be able to go back and get it later, so you pop it in your trolley as you go past.”
There are 12 Ikea stores in Canada, with four within an hour’s drive of downtown Toronto. There are two in each of B.C., Quebec and Alberta, with additions stores in Winnipeg and Ottawa. There are plans to introduce an ‘Order And Collection Point” store in London, Ont. in late 2015.