IKEA China Bans Sleeping On Store Furniture, Customers Continue to Snooze

IKEA China Bans Sleeping On Store Furniture, Customers Continue to Snooze
Apr 08, 2015 By eChinacities.com

Sick of the number of snoozing customers, IKEA China recently announced a new rule: no more sleeping in or on sample furniture. However, IKEA staff had have major issues enforcing the new rule.

Beijing Youth Daily reported that they checked out the IKEA store at Xihongmen in Beijing. They wrote that were still customers sleeping in and on half the beds and sofas in the store. Customers had even taken off their shoes and crawled under the quilts for a snooze. The majority of store sleepers were children taking an afternoon nap.

A middle-aged women in the store told the Beijing Youth Daily that when she got tired while shopping in the nearby mall, she would head to IKEA to take a rest. She said she really liked how comfortable the beds at IKEA were. She added that her friends also liked to take naps at IKEA, and that the number of sleeping customers shouldn't have a “significant impact,” on IKEA sales.

Beijing Youth Daily also came across a young mother sitting beside a crib. Her son was fast asleep inside. She said that she had come to shop at IKEA and her son was tired so she let him take a nap. “When you go out shopping with small children, they get tired easily,” she said.

An IKEA staff member said that the new rule did ban customers from sleeping on furniture, but most of the sleepers are children and elderly. Another staff member said that customers just don't listen when they're told about the new rule. “You see so many people sleeping, it's too hard to control.”

Source: wenxuecity.com

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Keywords: Beijing IKEA IKEA sleeping customers IKEA China

13 Comments

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Guest240674

all in all, I thought it was all good advertising,,,,, someone must of wet the bed again...

Apr 15, 2015 00:46 Report Abuse

Guest2503130

No surprises there then...

Apr 09, 2015 17:38 Report Abuse

silverbutton1

Wasn't there an article about "IKEA Hide and Seek" being started somewhere in Europe on an internet news website ? Instead of them sleeping, maybe someone can teach them to play hide and seek instead.

Apr 09, 2015 12:03 Report Abuse

Robk

Haha... when there are websites devoted to Chinese sleeping in any place, at any time under almost under any circumstance... owning comfortable furniture for people to use is inviting trouble. Why is it just IKEA? Are they trying purposely to abuse foreign items? I never really see Chinese sleeping around in Chinese furniture shops except the staff of course...

Apr 09, 2015 11:25 Report Abuse

Garbo

I would just ask them to move because I wanted to try it before buying it. They always got up without a problem. I think this has to do with Chinese doing this in other countries. Or it's just become too much of an embarrassment .

Apr 09, 2015 10:11 Report Abuse

Guest14204170

Yeah but it's not my job to ask a million people to move...

Apr 13, 2015 12:18 Report Abuse

Guest770686

Easy - just ask them to move, tap them on the shoulder or push them softly out of the way. Once they wake and realise you are a foreigner they won't say a word to you. I wanted to try a chair in my local IKEA and after waiting 2 minutes for someone to get off it I just pulled the chair back and gestured for them to get off. Of course they did with a polite giggle to save face. It helps that I'm over 6 foot and 90 kg's :)

Apr 09, 2015 08:43 Report Abuse

Guest2301262

Do you know they teach guerilla warfare at school? Zero in on the enemies' pressure points and exploit their loopholes. When the enemy is strong I retreat, vice versa. This is also what cockroaches, one of the oldest surviving insects on earth do, think about that..... These low lives know what they are doing, they pick the best habitat they can find, use your civility, compassion, sympathy (all pressure points to them) against you. Also likely is among them some are paid (local competitors) to sabotage IKEA, especially greedy elderlies who have plenty of time. Real prospects are prevented from trying out the furniture meaning IKEA is being robbed of business. Fire those incompetent/bribed security guards who took advantage of management's leniency, hire competent ones. Job interview questions, 1. Do you know how to wake people up? 2. Can you do it? Money talks.

Apr 08, 2015 19:13 Report Abuse

alpha3305

This is not difficult to enforce. 1) Warning from staff 2) Warning that police will be called 3) Call the police (it's called loitering). If most of the customers are children or elderly people then install more benches and chairs in the front or outside of the building. Even better stop bringing the children to go shopping with you because "they get tired easily".

Apr 08, 2015 18:24 Report Abuse

DrMonkey

You are new to China, maybe ? A common attitude against law enforcement is to say "don't be so uptight", "it's no big deal", "but somebody else does it". Then, if you insist, it will be "is that so ?! I'm not gonna move then ! what are you going to do now !!!". Always pushing the boundary of the acceptable until there's no boundary. The police won't budge, too much troubles...

Apr 08, 2015 18:32 Report Abuse

alpha3305

I'm not new to this circus but I try to keep my ideals that the people here are just like me but without some keys points of civil information. I still have hope that they can adjust, just as much as they want me to adjust to them. Yes i know i need to lower my expectations but i dream that my asian bro and sis can wake up from this childish behavior.

Apr 09, 2015 07:56 Report Abuse

tsmithfi

Obviously a neophyte in China.....

Apr 09, 2015 11:00 Report Abuse

DrMonkey

Not blaming you, been there, done that :) Sadly, the routine here is to push each other boundaries, tactical exploitations of loopholes, lowering everybody expectation until it reaches the bottom, thus destroying any hope for civility. I gave up and went back home...

Apr 09, 2015 16:19 Report Abuse