Ikea, Exposed.

People often wonder how furniture giant Ikea sustains it's business throughout all these years. Researchers have written papers and theorised about how they achieve economies of scale, and use numerous methods to cut costs. But what many don't know is the real secret behind the Swedish company's success; and no, it's not the meatballs.

Elun was looking to buy a body-length mirror, so unemployed duo Weide and Gary tagged along to Ikea, located at the Alexandra area. Disguised as conceptual room layouts and with no less than 5000000000 items on showfloor display, Ikea is the classic deathtrap for shoppers.

Here's a simplified floor plan of the actual thing:

Yup, it's a damn MAZE WITHOUT AN EXIT if you haven't realised already. After a few hours of joke making, searching and seeing the same corners over and over again, we finally found the method to make the exit appear before us: make a purchase. Elun picked up a $14.90 mirror, and voila! the cashier counter magically appeared before our adventuring party.

Suddenly, everthing made sense, the high numbers on it's 'Customer Counter', hundreds of ever-walking shoppers and a surprisingly sustainable business. I think they need a new slogan: