Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Ikea week!

In honor of the July 25th grand opening of the Ikea store here in Portland, I have several Ikea-related items I'll be posting in the next few days. Today's item is from today's newspaper.

'Ikea': a play in four acts
The Ikea shopping experience is as powerful as a piece of theater--hopefully, for the company, a comedy.
Act I: This is the big-box store even liberals can love. You enter and grab a yellow shopping bag and a scorecard on which to write the Swedish names and shelf numbers of things you want. (And for someone who speaks Norwegian, those names are pretty boring. For example, the LUFTIG pillows, which mean "fluffy" or the MJÖK bedding, which means "soft." Come on. They could get more creative than that. How about KVELE pillows, which means "smother" or FRISKJONLØS bedding, which means "frictionless?") If you have kids you can exchange them for a beeper (And with some kids, the parents wish it could be permanent.)and leave them in the playroom. Swedes are big on free child care. The restaurant, with its subsidized prices and exclusive use of Ikea wares, has the feel of a Cuban vacation resort.

Act II: Following the arrows, you wander in a mazy formation, officially known as "the long natural pathway," which takes you by the "inspirational settings" where whole rooms are furnished with Ikea products. The intoxication of total branding takes effect. There are shortcuts for experienced shoppers, but mainly Ikea wants maximum exposure of consumer to product, like the oxygenation of blood. Chipper young assistants at kiosks let you know whether your dream sofa is actually in stock. (And the likelihood of it being out of stock is directly proportional to how much you want the specific item. This is how they keep you coming back to check, only to buy more stuff... or so I've heard... I've NEVER done that...)

Act III: After the furniture, you pass through the housewares section, which has pallets of impulse purchases--tea lights, picture frames, potted plants--at ridiculously low prices. (It's a psychological impossibility to NOT buy 100 tea lights for $2... even if you hate candles, you just have to buy them because you can't afford NOT to! It's the same principle that supports Costco's bulk nutmeg sales.)After sweating the big stuff, it's tempting to load up a cart with lamps, mirrors, and cookware. And why the hell not? Everyone hates shopping for this sort of stuff, so get it all at once.

Act IV: At home you sit on the floor inhaling the smells of fiberboard and Styrofoam, trying to follow the instructional drawings and sizing up the bolts. After that you start noticing your stuff in other people's homes. (Now that the store is opening, people are going to see that my office isn't as creatively designed as they think it is. There goes my street cred!)

1 comment:

Tracy said...

You forgot to mention the well organized arrows in the parking lot for rental trucks, as well as self loading areas.