Thursday, February 10, 2005

SHOPPING HELL

Especially in Edmonton, North London at midnight.



Have you ever shopped at IKEA? All stores are huge aircraft hanger sized boxes with no windows. You are shunted through a maze like corridor. Stuff is so "cheap" that you "must buy" it. (There's still a few unused picture frames hanging around in my house. And, how did I not live without that shelving unit that stored nothing but air?)

Before getting to the checkout, you have to negotiate the "self-service" warehouse, which surely contravenes health and safety legislation. Oh, don't forget to pick up another shelving unit, desk, CD storage rack, TV/Video/DVD/Bondage unit whilst you're at it.

Push that trolley to the check-out, via the shins of fellow shoppers. The polo-shirted, minimum-waged, automaton will ring up your goods, at which time you'll remember that you only came for a light bulb and tea-lites. £178.53. And, then they hit you with...

"From 1st September 2004, customers paying by Visa and MasterCard will have a 70p supplement added to their bills at the point of payment. This is to cover credit card administration charges imposed on IKEA by Visa and MasterCard.

4. Why is IKEA charging 70p? Wouldn't it be fairer to charge customers a percentage of their total bill?
We're doing it for simplicity and the sake of speed at the checkout. A one-off 70p charge can be addded to the bill using barcode technology."*

More reasons to hate IKEA:

You stand a high probability of getting crushed if you want to take advantage of special offers.

"...a crowd outside of the controlled queue surged forward, causing a crush at the entrance to the store."

That is, it's the public's fault.

"Police is also investigating ca separate incident near IKEA’s premises, in which a man was stabbed."

Probably that moustachoed fat bastard who's been threatening to do bad things to his dog in ads on the London Underground.

"The safety of customers and co-workers is of the highest priority for IKEA."

Actually, making profits is the highest priority.

Oh, and the IKEA founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was a Nazi sympathiser. But, of course, now he's the acceptable face of crapitalism.

* - Because of their huge turnover, IKEA probably get charged no more than 1/2% per transaction. Do you think the average credit card transaction at IKEA is £35? No, neither did I.

:: Posted by pete @ 13:30