{"id":1721,"date":"2016-02-23T10:13:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T18:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1721"},"modified":"2016-02-23T10:16:21","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T18:16:21","slug":"19-behind-the-scenes-secrets-of-ikea-employees-mental-floss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1721","title":{"rendered":"19 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of IKEA Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>\u00a0Last night I was out with a friend and he<\/span>\u00a0was telling me how he was with his girlfriend and she wanted to go to Ikea to buy a light bulb. \u00a0He made her promise that they weren’t going to spend time looking at furniture, just in and out for the light bulb. \u00a0 Of course as soon as they got there, she wanted to talk about how good this bookcase would look in her bedroom, how nice this mirror looked and it ended up being a 2 hour trip. \u00a0I explained to him that it was his fault for believing that ANYONE goes into Ikea to buy a light bulb. \u00a0That’s like going into Walmart to buy a pack of gum.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 This is a great list from Mental Floss.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 What they call “Bulla Bulla” is what we used to call “Stack it high, and let it fly.” \u00a0People will buy more from a full display because they think it must be a great deal. \u00a0 I’m always amused when I see some CVS endcaps that literally have 12 pieces of an item on it. \u00a0At least it won’t have to be filled, because no one is going to buy anything from a nearly empty display like that. \u00a0 And it’s interesting that we’re trained to offer help but IKEA employees are trained not to. \u00a0I really wonder if anyone has actually surveyed people and asked them “Would you like to be offered help by every employee that walks by you while you’re shopping for your lice medicine, or would you prefer that there just be someone available to ask if you need help?” \u00a0 \u00a0I’m guessing most people would prefer the latter. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Chances are good you have a piece of IKEA furniture in your home. Perhaps you\u2019re even sitting on an IKEA couch, reading at an IKEA desk, or lying in an IKEA bed right now. The Swedish company is the world\u2019s largest furniture retailer, selling billions of dollars<\/a>\u00a0worth of goods each year, from BILLY bookcases to GLIMMA tealights. Its massive blue-and-yellow stores are kept well-stocked and running smoothly thanks to the efforts of more than 150,000 employees (or as IKEA calls them, \u201ccoworkers\u201d) across the globe. We spoke with a few of them about what it\u2019s like to work for one of the world\u2019s most recognizable retail stores:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

1. THE IKEA PATHWAY HAS A CODE NAME.<\/em><\/h4>\n

It\u2019s no secret IKEA\u2019s maze-like showrooms are designed to take shoppers through every department, from the kitchen to the textiles, making sure they lay eyes on as many goods as possible. “One could describe it as if IKEA grabs you by the hand and consciously guides you through the store in order to make you buy as much as possible,” Johan Stenebo, an IKEA veteran,\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in his book,\u00a0The Truth About Ikea.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The winding walkway is known lovingly among employees as the \u201cLong Natural Path\u201d or the \u201cLong Natural Way.\u201d According to a 2011\u00a0New Yorker<\/a>\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0by Lauren Collins, the pathway is supposed to curve every 50 feet to prevent shoppers from getting bored.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

2. THERE ARE SECRET SHORTCUTS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Need to get to bedding but don\u2019t want to walk through textiles, bathroom, and living room first? Stuck on the top floor but need a quick way to ground level? Take a shortcut.<\/em><\/p>\n

There are multiple quick routes through the store, both for safety reasons and stocking reasons, and they\u2019re open to the public. But they\u2019re not advertised, so you\u2019ll need a keen eye for secret passageways. Often they take the form of unmarked service doors.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know where to look, you\u2019ll find them,\u201d says Paula, who worked at an IKEA store in Houston for a year. At her store, there was a shortcut route that started with an unmarked door near the escalators. \u201cNobody\u2019s going to stop you unless it explicitly says \u2018employees only,\u2019 but other than that you can open doors and you\u2019d be amazed,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI love IKEA, but sometimes you just need to get in and out in like 20 minutes,\u201d says Marie, who worked at IKEA for 11 years. If that\u2019s the case, just ask an employee to give you the quickest route to your destination and they\u2019ll point you to the nearest shortcut.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

3. BUT DON\u2019T GET TOO USED TO THOSE SHORTCUTS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re always changing,\u201d says Paul Robertson, who worked for 10 years at IKEA Canada. \u201cThey used to change them fairly frequently because we had a lot of repeat business, so customers would get familiar with the shortcuts and know how to zip through. After a while they would change the shortcuts to force people to go around the long way again.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

4. THE WALLS MOVE.<\/em><\/h4>\n

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According to Paula, the partitions that enclose IKEA\u2019s various showrooms are on rollers and can be moved. \u201cThey have a lock on them so people can\u2019t randomly move them,\u201d Paula says. \u201cAt the end of the night we move all the walls out of the way so we have a straight shot to where the trash is.\u201d This also makes it easier to remodel the display rooms.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

5. PEOPLE BUY THE ROOMS THAT ARE ON DISPLAY.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Speaking of the display rooms, occasionally customers will decide they like an entire room so much, they\u2019ll order it as-is. \u201cThere have been people that come in and see a room and like everything there and they take it,\u201d Paula says.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

6. THE \u201cOPEN THE WALLET\u201d SECTION<\/em><\/h4>\n

IKEA stores are littered with piles of small, practical items that are so cheap they\u2019re hard to pass up. These areas are called the \u201cOpen The Wallet\u201d sections. \u201cThere, an abundance of cheap goods\u2014flowerpots, slippers, lint rollers\u2014encourages the customer to make a purchase, any purchase, the thinking being that IKEA shoppers buy either nothing or a lot,\u201d\u00a0Collins\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0New Yorker.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Rob, a two-year IKEA veteran, this area was located at the bottom of the stairs on the second floor at his store. \u201cIt\u2019s basically impulse buys,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of very cheap items, things that look practical, useful, something you didn\u2019t realize you wanted.\u201d The next thing you know you\u2019re shoving five packs of tea candles and a bunch of plastic hangers into your yellow shopping bag, when all you really came in for was a desk lamp. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

7. BULLA BULLA<\/em><\/h4>\n

Another method for getting people to add things to their bags is known internally as the \u201cbulla bulla\u201d technique. Big bins are stuffed to the point of overflowing with hundreds of items \u201cto create the impression of volume and, therefore, inexpensiveness,\u201d\u00a0Collins writes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big things is the sort of jumbo bin, they love that,\u201d says Robertson. \u201cIf stock starts running low there, fill it back up. Pile it high. Customers think they\u2019re getting a deal.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

8. YES, YOU CAN NAP ON THE FURNITURE …<\/em><\/h4>\n

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The displays are meant to be touched, tested, and experienced. If you want to curl up on an IKEA couch or sprawl out on the bed, go for it. \u201cYou are allowed to sit on the beds,\u201d says Paula, \u201cbut if you\u2019ve been there for two or three hours, we have to wake you up.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a particularly well-documented phenomenon in China, where shoppers have beenphotographed<\/a> snoozing all over the showroom. \u201cWe don\u2019t see it as a problem,\u201d IKEA spokesman Josefin Thorell told<\/a> the Wall Street Journal. \u201cWe\u2019re happy people feel at home in our stores. Certainly, it entails a little extra work for the staff, purely practically. But on the other hand, if customers try out our furniture and like it, we can sell an extra mattress or two.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

9. … BUT YOU PROBABLY DON\u2019T WANT TO.<\/em><\/h4>\n

According to Jana, an IKEA employee in Texas, the pillows on the display beds get swapped out once a month at her store, and the pillowcases only get changed when they are visibly dirty. The same goes for blankets and duvet covers. \u201cI changed a bunch of duvet covers yesterday because from people touching the same corner every day, it looked dingy,\u201d she says. \u201cIf we see something and think it looks gross, it needs to be changed.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

10. THEY WISH YOU\u2019D STOP OPENING THINGS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u201cCustomers will open anything and everything,\u201d says Jana. \u201cEverything in that store, we have on display. You can touch it, feel it, lay your face on it, but for some reason they\u2019ll open the package and then leave it there. What they don\u2019t understand is when they open certain things, we can\u2019t resell them, so we have to scan them out.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

11. THEY\u2019RE TRAINED NOT TO OFFER HELP.<\/em><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019re the passive-aggressive type of shopper, you\u2019re bound to be disappointed at IKEA. Employees are given specific instructions to let the customers come to them if they need assistance. \u201cYou were supposed to only help customers if they asked you for it,\u201d says Rob. \u201cWe were told that\u2019s a very Scandinavian way of how stores work.\u201d The same rule applies in the warehouse, where customers are expected to find and lift their own items unless it\u2019s obvious they need assistance. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

12. THE BOOKS IN THE SHOWROOM OFTEN COME FROM EMPLOYEES\u2019 OWN LIBRARIES.<\/em><\/h4>\n

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IKEA\u2019s sample rooms often feature towering bookshelves, but empty shelves aren\u2019t particularly inviting. So, employees are asked to bring books from their own collection to fill the blank space. \u201cAll of that was stuff we owned,\u201d Rob says. Usually they were asked to bring books that matched a certain color scheme. And you couldn\u2019t bring in anything racy. \u201cYou had to use your common sense,\u201d Rob says. \u201cNothing pornographic or anything.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

13. THE MOST POPULAR ITEMS ARE \u2026<\/em><\/h4>\n

The\u00a0BILLY bookcase<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0LACK table<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

14. THE SERIAL NUMBERS CAN TELL YOU A LOT.<\/em><\/h4>\n

According to Robertson, there\u2019s some rhyme and reason to the eight-digit code linked to each IKEA item. \u201cWhile I was there, it was that the last two numbers would tell you what color the item was. So let\u2019s say it ended in 40, it was blue. That would mean the 4 range was blue, so 41 might be light blue and 42 would be dark blue.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Many of the names have meaning, too.\u00a0According to<\/a>\u00a0Collins at the\u00a0New Yorker, \u201ctraditionally, the names of IKEA\u2019s bookcases derive from different occupations; curtains are given names from mathematics; and bathroom products are named for lakes and rivers.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

15. THEY WITNESS A LOT OF ARGUMENTS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u201cIf you really wanna test your relationship, go through IKEA and buy something,\u201d says Jana. \u201cI guess they just get stressed and overwhelmed that the store\u2019s so big. I had a couple trying to make a decision on a rug and he was mad and she was on verge of tears. Then we were out of the rug they wanted, which made it even worse.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Lovers’ quarrels are so common in the store that at least one psychologist\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0she has her bickering clients construct the\u00a0Norn\u00e4s coffee table<\/a>\u00a0as a relationship-building exercise. Janice Simonsen, design spokeswoman for IKEA U.S., also told the paper she spent five years as a furnishings consultant and created a list of guidelines specifically for couples planning a trip to the store.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

16. THEY SPEAK IN CODE.<\/em><\/h4>\n

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When \u201cCode 22\u201d comes over the intercom, it\u2019s a distress call from the cash lanes. \u201cWe usually hear it around rush hour or on weekends,\u201d says Jana. \u201cIt means the cash lanes are backed up into the warehouse. Anyone in the store who is register-trained has to go to the front and help.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

If a lost kid is wandering the store (which happens a lot), Jana says managers use \u201cCode 99\u201d to put all employees on alert. \u201cThere are so many wardrobes to hide in or bed skirts to hide under,\u201d says Marie. \u201cIf a kid really wanted to be hidden it would not be too hard.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

17. THINGS GET WILD AFTER HOURS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u201cAt the end of night, they\u2019d open all the walls and we\u2019d have a big empty space and there would be\u00a0pallet jack races<\/a>,\u201d Paula recalls.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And there\u2019s perhaps no better place to play hide-and-seek than in a massive, multiple-story maze stuffed with nooks and crannies. \u201cOn closing shifts, one guy I worked with would always manage to have me distracted, then he\u2019d go hide in the store,\u201d says Robertson. \u201cSo I would have to finish up tasks, walk through the store knowing somewhere along the way he would jump out at me, and he got me all the time.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

18. THEY GET GREAT CHRISTMAS GIFTS.<\/em><\/h4>\n

IKEA is pretty well-known for having good employee perks, including its end-of-year gifts, which range from electronics to plane tickets. \u201cThe first year I worked there they gave out bikes,\u201d says Rob. \u201cThis year they gave out Rokus<\/a>.\u201d Paula says her store gave employees who had been specially recognized by their coworkers the chance to win plane tickets to anywhere in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

19. PINTEREST DRIVES SALES.<\/em><\/h4>\n

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Pinterest Screenshot<\/em><\/div>\n

Employees can tell when an item has been featured in a viral Pinterest project because it sells out quickly. \u201cThere was\u00a0one specific spice rack<\/a>\u00a0we were constantly sold out of,\u201d says Paula. \u201cSomeone had gone on Pinterest and said you can paint it and make it a bookshelf for picture books for toddlers. We had to tell people, \u2018If you\u2019re here for the spice rack, we don\u2019t have it.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

(For reference, it\u2019s called the\u00a0BEKV\u00c4M<\/a>\u00a0spice rack.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0always leave with twice the number of items you came in for<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Last night I was out with a friend and he\u00a0was telling me how he was with his girlfriend and she wanted to go to Ikea to buy a light bulb. \u00a0He made her promise that they weren’t going to spend time looking at furniture, just in and out for the light bulb. \u00a0 Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retail-companies"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1721"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1733,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721\/revisions\/1733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}