So there I was with my wife Donna and two year old daughter Holly in Coventry’s IKEA store.

Now in this store there are 6 floors and you have to go up to the very top floor and work your way down! There’s no cheating!

Floor 6 only goes down to floor 5, floor 5 only goes down to floor 4 etc - That includes the escalator, stairs and lift!

It was driving me nuts!

We found what we wanted on Floor 5 and had to walk around each floor to get to the exit to the next floor down! Plus my little daughter had one on her with the terrible two’s So I just wanted to get out of therE…….quick!

We were in the lift and everyone was commenting on how unfriendly the store layout was and that “I’m not coming here again in a hurry”

This got me thinking about their sales process and why they would want to force you to take a certain course of action. Now I’m all for this type of approach because it maximizes your revenues but it has got to be consumer friendly at the same time.

Their thinking is that by walking through every department, that you will buy more product simply by exposing you to more sales opportunities.

This may or may not be true. But whilst you may increase the average unit of sale, you will decrease the frequency of purchase by not visiting the store as often.

Coventry’s IKEA is not a place I would visit often because the buying process is “so painful”. I can’t simply go in, get what I want and get the heck out of there. Instead I am forced to join my “fellow herd” in following the EXIT signs for 20 minutes to get out of there!

Remember the ways to build a business?

Higher prices, get them to purchase more product, get them to purchase more frequently.

By using this approach IKEA are hoping for you to purchase more product but it will be at the expense of more frequently purchased products – or so 80% of the people (20) in my lift were confessing to anyhow.

Think through your sales process and adjust it accordingly. I sure do hope that Coventry’s IKEA changes it’s sales process because by the looks of it (Saturday afternoon and it was not busy) they may need all of the help they can get.

Happy Selling!

Sean