Out of the box

MY ANTICIPATION and excitement was palpable before a walk-through of the new IKEA Springvale store last week.
A chance to check out some furniture and venture into unchartered areas of the store is like putting a kid in a very big candy store for anyone with a love of homewares – a person like me.
It is only a month until the doors open to the public so the sneak-peak was a cherished perk of the job – and a chance to make a mental shopping list.
During a wander through the thousands of half constructed displays, my jaw dropped when store manager David Brady started listing some statistics about the store.
IKEA Springvale is 50 per cent bigger than its Richmond counterpart, it employs 350 staff and a full lap is two kilometres long; the staff will have installed 20,000 displays by opening day.
“The customer will see about 36,000 square metres so it’s a BIG store,” David said – for a bit of perspective that is one and half times the size of the MCG!
And when we reach the self-serve warehouse, David reveals there are 2000 shopping carts in the building (with dedicated trolley elevators) and 16,000 pallets of stock in the self-serve warehouse. It is pretty mindblowing.
Although the store is still in its construction phase, it is easy to see how it is coming together – some departments are termed ‘shoppable’ but some have barely been touched.
It might be boring for some people but for shoppers like me, was thrilling to see hundreds of IKEA employees assembling furniture and creating rooms.
The busy employees who were scattered around the store were clearly enjoying themselves and David said they were all getting better at putting together the pieces.
“The guys have been in here for about four weeks so they’ve gotten faster, they’ve gotten more experienced and they’ve gotten more confident with the furniture,” he said.
“It really starts to become a bit competitive.”
During our 40 minute leisurely lap of the store, (sadly with no time to shop), it is pretty obvious that it would be easy to spend hours among the cutlery, kitchens and couches come opening day.
With a few desired items in mind, the chance to go IKEA shopping at a store close to home can not come soon enough.