Stor means big. Most get those pesky ekstra æøå letters correct.

Sometimes they have exactly what you need, sometimes everything is exactly not what you’re looking for.

You can compete on design, but Ikea has excellent design, so that would be tough. You probably couldn’t beat them on design while remaining competitive on price, because they have the advantage of large numbers.

It would be tough to compete with the “store experience” – the restaurants and the packaged foods are unique and quite good, there is just the right amount of random stuff besides furniture and housewares on the shelves to keep things interesting, the staff aren’t necessarily that knowledgable or helpful but they keep out of your way (no slimy salesmen), the return policy is good… what are you going to improve upon, really? I guess you could make the checkout lines shorter?

I’m not saying you couldn’t possibly compete with them – but to realistically compete with them you couldn’t just copy. And you’d pretty much have to aim at a slightly pricier market between Ikea and the “high-end” furniture places, with design that is competitive with Ikea and which blows away the mediocrity of the “high-end” places (I don’t mean actual high-end furniture). I guess this is what @boingboing-ec9211f13ea4f9ad0e58be1eef8fe2d4:disqus  is describing with Möbler though I don’t know how good their design is.

Even then, Ikea isn’t just cheap stuff – they have cheap, mid-range, and even fairly high-end versions of many products.

Also, does anyone have any stor commercials?  I’ve been trying to find them online but never have had any luck.