It’s not a new story, but it’s always a fun one. In the Bejiing IKEA (and, I presume, the IKEA stores in other cities), shoppers love to “try out” the displays, settling into the living rooms or offices for hours on end. One of the favorite activities is napping on the display beds and sofas. Wander into the IKEA on a hot summer afternoon and there will be a person napping on pretty much every single bed!
The good folks at China Real Time posted a fun photo essay of IKEA nappers. Here’s part of the accompanying article:
One Getty photographer recently focused on a subspecies of the Chinese nappers: Those who like to frequent IKEA’s beds. As any visitor to a Chinese IKEA can attest, such stores have a particularly convivial feel, with locals flocking to the store to simply hang out, as well as shop–or, as the case may be, catch a few winks.
Asked about the Chinese penchant for napping in its stores, IKEA spokesman Josefin Thorell said the furniture company was fine with it. “This is a spontaneous phenomenon. Some customers who enter the Chinese stores sleep in the bed. IKEA in China does nothing to prevent nor anything to attract sleepers. But we don’t see it as a problem, we’re happy people feel at home in our stores. Certainly, it entails a little extra work for the staff, purely practically. But on the other hand, if customers try out our furniture and like it, we can sell an extra mattress or two.”
Here are two more photos (the rest can be seen here):
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To Shop or Sleep; That is the Question
If I slept every night on a hard bed like the ones at the Ruyri (sp?) hotel I think I would take a nice long nap at IKEA too.
Hah! And that’s precisely why I owned an IKEA mattress when I lived in Beijing!