IKEA – Friend or Foe?

How is it that when one goes shopping with a view to buying a few specific things (usually on a list), one often arrives back home with far more stuff than one intended to purchase and far less money in one's pocket?

It was my belief that the only shop that had the power to do this in any significant way was Hamleys, the toy store in London. In my case, this is understandable - I've got a psychological age of 12 and a half (certified by Dr. Kanika Sharma) and anything that moves, makes a noise or has flashing lights always grabs my attention (N.B. My pshchological age used to be twelve, but this was re-evaluated at the wedding I attended last week - thanks Kan!).

This was a belief that I held until I moved to Vienna. Now I think there is a new contender - a Swedish, home furnishings retailer that promises to create a better everyday life for people by offering a wide range of well designed function products at low prices, known to you and me as IKEA.

I hate to admit it, but in the last few weeks, IKEA has managed to get the better of me every time I've been there. On average, I've managed to spend aprox. double the amount of money I intended.

Take yesterday for example. I walked into the store with the intention of buying a small, foldable table and a couple of chairs which should have set me back no more than 150 euros. What did I end up buying? Here's a list

Small foldable table 149 euros
Two chairs for the small foldable table - 60 euros (there goes the budget of 150 euros!)
Chest of drawers for the guest bedroom - 79 euros
Clothes rack for the guest bedroom - 14.50
Hangers for the clothes rack - 9 euros
Two NABBEN cushions - 22 euros
Covers for the cushions - 8 euros
Desk chair (for my office at home) - 69euros
Two desk organisers - 8 euros

This makes a grand total of approx 420 euros - so much for my little trip to IKEA to buy a small table. It can be argued that I need the other stuff that I bought (and yes, I do need it). However, what I object to is the fact that I didn't intend to buy most of this stuff when I stepped into the store. Am I the only person that IKEA has this effect on? Please let me know if you have had similar experiences at IKEA or somewhere else.

I wonder how many people in the world IKEA does this throughout the year? Well, IKEA operates in over 25 countries and had a turnover of 15billion euros. On average, that's about 600million euros per country.

Assuiming that the average punter (like you and me) spend aprox 100 euros per visit, that's about 6million people that were screwed out of their hard earned cash last year - that's about 16,000 people per day in your country (and IKEA have been doing this since 1958!)

Having said all this, the figures speak for them selves - 16,000 of us in each of the 25 or so countries where IKEA operates willingly walk into IKEA every day and donate the contents of our wallets and plastic in exchange for boxes, usually no more that a few inches tall, which we use to furnish our homes - I guess we must really like doing it - IKEA - what would we do without you?