IKEA acts to make DIY shopping simpler

IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant, is trying to make DIY shopping a less hellish experience by simplifying its stores.

Two London shops have abandoned the loading bays and cut down on the number of products to make it easier for customers to make a quick exit. And the IKEA at Braehead, near Glasgow, has introduced easier-to-read boards to help puzzled customers find the exit.

The company is even to expand a service matching up customers with local joiners, who can put together the flat-pack furniture for a fee. In Wembley, north-west London, IKEA has reduced the number of products on sale from 14,500 to 8,500.

The store, along with the one in Croydon, has abandoned the system of making people park, then transfer to a parking bay to load up their purchases.

A spokesman for IKEA Scotland said: "The concept of flat-pack is IKEA's bedrock, but in future you will be able to say, 'I have bought three wardrobes for my house and I'd like somebody to put them up for me'."

In the past six to nine months every store has opened its own kitchen information service, which offers customers the chance to have in-store advice on design and gives them the option of having the kitchen assembled by joiners.

But yesterday a spokesman for the company said there were no plans for the two stores in Scotland, at Braehead and Edinburgh, to follow the example of the two in the south-east and reduce the number of products.

Both the Edinburgh and Glasgow stores are relatively new, and do not suffer the overcrowding which was strangling trade at the Wembley store, which could have 25,000 customers in a day.