20 November 2015

Food queue the one to watch at IKEA Canberra

| Charlotte
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Ross and Kim Morgan

Visitors to IKEA on its opening day told RiotACT the crowds were much smaller than they’d expected, and that there was no wait to get into the store when it opened for the first time.

The only part of the store that looked busy enough to cause any aggravation was the restaurant, where a substantial queue had formed well before lunchtime.

Ikea food queue

Shopper May Bennison (below) arrived just after the opening time of 9.30am with her baby daughter. She said it didn’t seem any busier than an IKEA in Sydney on a Saturday.

“They had the windy line-up thing that we had to walk through, but there was no one in it, so we walked straight through,” she said.

Ms Bennison said she and her daughter were able to get through the store very quickly.

“I was going to not come today because I thought it was going to be crazy and with a pram, but everyone I’d spoken to said they were going to come when the crowds died down, so I thought, if everyone’s doing that, I’m just going to come on the day it opens.”

Shopping

Kim and Ross Morgan (pictured at top of page) were visiting Canberra for a night out and decided to duck into IKEA this morning.

“I didn’t realize it was opening day, and as we were driving across we realized, but I thought, no, I’m so close, we’re continuing,” Mrs Morgan said.

She said the crowds moved through fairly easily.

“I think the staff are really good in there. It’s their first day, so they’re happy, I suppose.”

Mr Morgan said they’d be back in a couple of months to see how they’re going.

“Maybe post-Christmas,” Ms Morgan said.

Checkouts at IKEA

By late morning, the main carpark was still full and there was a trickle of people making their way across from the overflow parking at Costco, with the help of stop/slow men wearing cardboard IKEA hats.

There were queues at the main IKEA checkout area but customers looked reasonably happy about the waiting time.

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Mess said :

I’ve been out to Ikea twice now, both times mid-afternoon and both times it was fine. Plenty of people around, but was able to move around freely and park in the Ikea parking lot. I think you need to pick your times, shopping centres are the same. I can imagine lunchtimes would be horrible.

I found Friday night was quite empty, plus they open til 7pm most nights.

I’ve been out to Ikea twice now, both times mid-afternoon and both times it was fine. Plenty of people around, but was able to move around freely and park in the Ikea parking lot. I think you need to pick your times, shopping centres are the same. I can imagine lunchtimes would be horrible.

Didn’t read how difficult it is to drive into the place. Went yesterday and it was crowded . It is difficult to move around the shop- kept getting hit with Ikea plastic shopping bags and trolleys. Nearly slipped over where some disgusting person had dropped food and left it there. Had a screaming child following us around until we turned back. Why parents don’t take screaming, crying childre out of shop is beyond me. All in all a typical Canbera shopping experience.

Dreadnaught19053:25 pm 17 Nov 15

dungfungus said :

“Same thing happens at football games, music festivals etc…….”
also during terrorist attacks which doesn’t help emergency services.

Fortunately, since Boston in 2013, there have been some pretty big improvements in the way that mobile / cellular providers deal with increased voice load during emergency situations. Some smarter geographical based routing and deploy-on-demand base units are now commonplace.

Telstra have a range of on demand devices they can deploy from MEOW (Mobile Exchange on Wheels) (up to MkIII now, with improvements after Victorian Bushfires and Brisbane floods), the older CoW (Cell on Wheels) for standard users of the Mobile Network; and TECK (Telstra Emergency Communication Kits) units for emergency services.

With new VoLTE capabilities* in place by Telstra (available now), Vodaphone by 2016 and Optus currently in testing**, the likelihood of even voice services being completely constrained in an emergency is being minimised.

*Ok, so you need to have an Iphone 6s or Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ for this to work… (but the technology is still cool!)

**Dates are from wikipedia, so treat as extremely rubbery.

Mess said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Cashless transactions were making the queues very long. The eftpos machines wouldn’t let the card swipe properly as it got caught at the bottom. It seemed these transactions plus ones where people used phones to pay were causing issues. Phone reception sucked, couldn’t even check acc balance with 4G and 3 bars reception.
I got what I needed but of the 2 hours spent there, half an hour was just standing in queue, 15 min at the checkouts and another 15 to get a bottle of mustard.
I wonder if they have online ordering and pickup?

The phone reception probably sucked due to the amount of people on their phones in the store. Same thing happens at football games, music festivals etc.

“Same thing happens at football games, music festivals etc…….”
also during terrorist attacks which doesn’t help emergency services.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Cashless transactions were making the queues very long. The eftpos machines wouldn’t let the card swipe properly as it got caught at the bottom. It seemed these transactions plus ones where people used phones to pay were causing issues. Phone reception sucked, couldn’t even check acc balance with 4G and 3 bars reception.
I got what I needed but of the 2 hours spent there, half an hour was just standing in queue, 15 min at the checkouts and another 15 to get a bottle of mustard.
I wonder if they have online ordering and pickup?

The phone reception probably sucked due to the amount of people on their phones in the store. Same thing happens at football games, music festivals etc.

The traffic in the precinct was no where near as bad as predicted. I went over at 3pm on Mon arvo after a couple of specific things, parked close to the entry door and was back in my car and off to Costco Gas by 3:20.

The big impact, as mentioned, is Telstra mobile capacity – it simply could not cope – I didn’t receive a single call while I was in the area, but received a number of voicemail messages from missed calls, but could only hear about half of them as the rest weren’t able to download.

pink little birdie3:41 pm 16 Nov 15

it’s like they opened during work/school hours on a Monday…

Charlotte Harper9:27 pm 16 Nov 15

Yes, looking at all the mums with prams today I did think to myself this was a good strategy for their opening. People who can will visit during this first week on a weekday, meaning the crowds will be more manageable on the first weekend.

wildturkeycanoe3:00 pm 16 Nov 15

Cashless transactions were making the queues very long. The eftpos machines wouldn’t let the card swipe properly as it got caught at the bottom. It seemed these transactions plus ones where people used phones to pay were causing issues. Phone reception sucked, couldn’t even check acc balance with 4G and 3 bars reception.
I got what I needed but of the 2 hours spent there, half an hour was just standing in queue, 15 min at the checkouts and another 15 to get a bottle of mustard.
I wonder if they have online ordering and pickup?

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