30 April 2006
IKEA opened its second largest store in the world on 12 April, in Beijing. With 43,000 sqm of exhibition space, four levels, 77 room settings and underground parking for 1,200 cars. As we are finishing the renovation of two apartments, one for our friend and one that will rent out, we needed to hunt for more furniture and decoration. For the first time I visited myself an IKEA store in China and it was an exhausting tour – 22 April. No need to go running in the gym that day. It is simply huge and crowded too – we went on a Saturday afternoon just after a spicy Thai lunch.
The store is located just next to the highway to the airport and the 4th Ring Road. First surprise – the underground car park was pretty full. The Beijing crowd loves their cars and are now (by force) filling up the car parks, as there is no other way to get your car parked in front of the door: Chinese are not very hot yet to use underground car parks.
On the opening day the store received a record 70,000 visitors and sold 6,500 hotdogs at the food corner. They also sell ice-cream, all at rock bottom prices. The police had to intervene to avoid chaos on the ring road, difficult, as chaos on the roads is the norm here.
I grew up with IKEA, in Belgium and in Hong Kong. Twenty years later I still have some pieces with me, they survived a dozen or so international removals. It might not be everybody’s taste but it is sure practical and here IKEA has lowered their prices to compete with the copycats. So, all quite reasonable and it has lots of interesting stuff – 7,000 products actually. We also bought three fluffy rats – three of us shopping are “rats” (Chinese sign). I even found the impossible: anti-slip rubber mats to put under carpets, with the tasty detail they smell like German sauerkraut.
The Chinese customers seem to be curious, sometimes puzzled but surely not just window shopping. We had a bit of a hard time to understand the system, you have to fill out small forms with a crayon (available at every corner). My Chinese shopping partners did not get it right, they still thought they could present the form at the checkout and get all the furniture home delivered. Nope, you pick it all up yourself in the huge warehouse section and get it home yourself – a delivery service is available outside however. Not my problem – it was all explained in Chinese only and that’s not my department. So we just wheeled out a huge shopping cart with the little stuff, somebody will go back to take care of the furniture…
What a change again. When we moved to Shanghai in 1995 we need furniture for our (large) villa but could not find anything at all. We could not even buy a simple bed: one could only buy a complete bedroom set, all ugly and pure kitsch. The furniture even came with “disco lights” – decorated with colored lamps all over blinking. Might be to stimulate the senses and avoid expensive Viagra. We gave it all up.
My ever resourceful better half started drawing IKEA type furniture for the whole house, kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc. She went to factory and simply ordered a huge truck of it all. It (barely) survived 3 removals and is still now with us in Beijing. Practical and simple. Except it was a headache to identify the dozens of doors, shelves and other parts to dismantle and reassemble. We used stickers but as always we ended up with strange new combinations. The family being handy with drilling machines, screws, hammers and other creative additions it all finally found its place again, in my offices and bedrooms.
Now you can find about everything in Shanghai and Beijing. Besides IKEA there are other similar brands like HOLA, Illinois, and many others. The shopping centers for house decoration, furniture, fittings, construction material, sanitary ware, lighting etc. are so huge they look rather like small cities. You find imports, domestic and the usual copycats.
According to HOLA, every year the average Beijing family spends nearly US$ 1,000 on home furnishing and alike.