Ah, Ikea… Everyone’s favourite place… to play hide and seek! If like us, the prospect of a trip to the never-ending pathway of doom fills you with hesitation, then we say “turn it into something fun”. We are often found pratting about on our trips to Ikea, you have to make it fun, especially now we have a child. Want to know our favourite hide and seek department? Then stick with us.
Today’s fact has been doing the rounds for a year or so – with some reporting that in the UK, 20% of us sleep on an Ikea mattress. The thing is, no one actually knows where this number originated. What we should add is they were not conceived in store, but in privacy, on their “assemble at home using a wordless manual” bed and no, the bedroom department is not our favourite place for hide and seek. Although the “lifty up” bed could be a winner… *INSERT Ottoman IMAGE*
There is a good chance today’s fact is accurate, especially if we take a look at some numbers we do know:
- Ikea has over 413 stores in 49 countries!
- It sells one of its Billy bookcases every 10 seconds!
- There are more Ikea catalogues printed than the Bible – with in excess of 200 million being printed every year!
- Around 70% of Ikea total marketing budget is spent on their catalogue!
- The wood that goes into all the Billy bookcases, and of course those tiny dowels, makes Ikea one of the world largest consumers of timber – using 1% of the entire world’s wood every year!
- More than 880 million people visit Ikea every year!
Ikea has become so popular it has spurned its own subculture – from Ikea hackers and modders to the aptly named YouTube channel, Hikea – where they take hallucinogenic drugs and try to put together Ikea furniture.
For us, the land of Allen keys, dowels, and everyone’s favourite meatball, is an excuse to be big kids, and we urge you to find your inner child the next time you go and play hide and seek. We have been known to race off, once in our favourite department – we have even done it when we had company, with little warning or explanation – much to their befuddlement. But, we have yet to find anyone not join in with us! What department? The wardrobe department! However, that was until the staff, in our branch at least, got wise and decided to fill them all with shelves. Did we create that many converts? Who knows…