

Beijing loves IKEA -- but not for shopping - adamhowell
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-china-ikea25-2009aug25,0,5131176.story?page=1

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hughprime
_IKEA has the added challenge of copycats. Brazen customers are known to come
in with carpenters armed with measuring tapes to make replicas._

Wow. That's a great indication of how different the Chinese economic landscape
is: it's cheaper to hire a carpenter to build you furniture than it is to buy
it at Ikea.

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dkarl
Obviously IKEA needs to open a factory there.

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huhtenberg
Obviously IKEA needs to charge an admission fee :)

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jhancock
When I first went to the IKEA Shanghai a few years ago, I was frustrated at
how difficult it was to shop there. IKEA is setup to make you walk through the
entire store. There is not shortcut to get to the checkout.

This problem becomes enormous when 90% of customers (lots; imagine christmas
time mobs of people) are walking around as if they've just arrived at Disney
World. Your trying to shop. They're casually strolling about getting in the
way. Its a painful and slow shopping experience.

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eru
In IKEAs I have visited in Germany there are usually a few shortcuts. I wonder
why there are no shortcuts in Shanghai.

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ZeroGravitas
_"I see you every week in this mall. I don't like you shiftless layabouts.
You're one of those fucking mallrat kids. You don't come to the mall to shop
or work. You hang out and act like you fucking live here. Well, I have no
respect for people with no shopping agenda. "_ \-- Mallrats

I see no reason to suggest that this behaviour is somehow unique to the
Chinese/IKEA combination.

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byrneseyeview
_I see no reason to suggest that this behaviour is somehow unique to the
Chinese/IKEA combination._

I see the article as a pretty decent reason, actually. Journalists are lazy --
if they could write this story about Dallas or Detroit, they would.

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akd
Detroit mallrats don't make as interesting of a read, but definitely the
behavior here (sleeping in a store bed) is a whole new level.

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Tiktaalik
The brand awareness is great, but the question is, how do we get people to
open up their wallets and spend money?" said Linda Xu

Ikea China is like a dot com company! :)

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furyg3
At least they're not using Ikea as a substitute for welfare:

<http://www.spiegel.de/international/1,1518,392850,00.html>

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radu_floricica
I'm guessing this doesn't hurt IKEA much. When time will come for those people
to change furniture, there's little chance they'll go somewhere else. And even
in such a visit they will leave money for food, drink and small purchases.
Overall it's worth the extra customer. They don't even form large queues.

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uiygbouybv
It hurts Ikea about as much as people looking in the window of Porsche/Rolls-
Royce/Bentley showrooms harms those companies.

So Ikea is seen as the aspirational symbol of western luxury by people in a
country with a billion people and the fastest growing economy - tough problem
to have!

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edw519
Reminds me of the people in India who pay $4 to sit in an airplane that goes
nowhere just for the experience.

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1675373,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1675373,00.html)

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sho
Jesus H. Christ. Thanks for the link. (feels vaguely guilty for having been
lucky enough not to have been born a poor indian villager)

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andyking
I live just down the road from a parked-up Concorde that people pay to go and
look round and sit in. In England.

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sho
Interesting that such a thing exists, but it's hardly the same! Hell, I'd
probably visit that, I loved Concorde, and love planes (and all vehicles
really) in general ..

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abalashov
Law of unintended consequences strikes again. ;)

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onreact-com
Well, these people even enhance the IKEA "experience":
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=770127>

