IKEA’s Store Shopping List: the feature that comes true

IKEA is so awesome, recently they post the ultimate trolling video of the year: the IKEA bookbook.

Lol.. I guess since that video, this “Apple-style” ads will be a joke, no? :p But in this post I am not going to talk about that, I want to share how awesome I found their website is, to help me with my “just moved” shopping.

I remember (not very well though) a few times during my study, students who were assigned to design a shop’s website would come up with many features, including “make a shopping list” feature. We dream of stores displaying all their product online and we can shop “virtually”: put things on the basket, the items in the basket will become a shopping list. Until recently, I have only heard this as a concept. I have not seen this feature in a real shop’s site.

Aaand, so the time comes when I have to move to a new city. And the most exciting thing for me is filling my new empty room with new stuff 😀 I don’t enjoy shopping for clothes as much as shopping for housewares :3 And the must visit store for this is definitely IKEA!

During two first weeks in France, I went to their big stores just to get familiar with the stores. France’s department stores in the suburbs like Auchan and Carrefour are ultra super very ultimate big. It is so so tiring that you have to go back to the aisle way down the store if you forgot something from that aisle’s “category”. Your feet will suffer if you don’t know what you need to get or if u are like me, the memory of these things only pops up at random and not always the right time.

I have lived in the country of IKEA–that the main supply of furniture and housewares are 99% from IKEA–for two years that this year I 80% know exactly what I need to get after moving into my new room. So I opened IKEA’s website to do an early browsing. Then I found this button “add to store shopping list” (after translated by Google Chrome from French to English) on mouse-over on each item.

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At first I was just clicking this button for no reason.. I thought nothing had happened. In HCI term–no feedback. So after a while browsing and clicking the same button, I was getting curious about what this button does. They can’t have put a button that does nothing. So I tried clicking “My Cart” as it is the word in bold–the clearest to the eye. But there was nothing there. Okay.. Then somehow I saw the button “check your shopping list” I forgot where that was, and then I also figured out that they have a “store shopping list” button next to “my cart”.

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Aaaaahhh.. so all the items I’ve clicked “add to store shopping list” are displayed in a neat list here <3 After going back to browse for more stuff, the final shopping list is done! I can even click on which store I am going for shopping and check the availability of the product. There was a long moment of awe looking at the list.

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It gives the total amount, so we can prepare the money. Having things well-prepared to the very detail is very Swedish… and it can even send the list to your email. Whoa.. easy access of the list on my mobile? I am in love!


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