STORES Magazine - February 2008 - (Page 26) COVER PEOPLE EXECUTIVE SUITE / RETAIL STORY For the Love of IKEA Blogger makes bringing a store close to home a personal quest Jen Segrest IKEA devotee and evangelist Middletown, Ohio ooling around town, Jen Segrest displays her devotion to the Swedish retailer whose products can be found in every room of her Middletown, Ohio, home. That’s because her license plates read “IKEA.” [there have been] no calls. At the groundbreaking, they made sure I got a media packet, so they might think of me more as media. Have other IKEA-obsessives contacted you for advice? T In fact, it’s easier for the freelance graphic artist to list what did not come from the retailer revered for its modern, utilitarian design: a bed, her husband’s desk and the kitchen cabinets. It was Segrest’s love for all things IKEA that led her to start ohikea.com – a website devoted to reporting on rumors that IKEA was seeking its first site in the Buckeye state – in 2004. (Until IKEA selected the Cincinnati suburb of West Chester in August 2006, the closest stores were hours away in the suburbs of Detroit, Chicago or Pittsburgh.) Segrest and her site have gained the notice of Business Week and a mention on Fast Company’s blog — and IKEA has revealed it monitors her site “carefully.” Along the way, ohikea.com has engaged and informed similarly IKEA-obsessed customers anxiously awaiting the store’s March 12 opening. When did this devotion to IKEA begin? Someone from Laughlin, Nev., called. He was with a consortium trying to get IKEA to come to [that suburb of Las Vegas]. I told him, here’s what you have to know. Like what? I kept seeing their awards in design annuals; they were winning awards for both print materials and industrial design for products. Then I started getting their catalog in 1998 and it was “Holy cow, this is a cool thing.” Your first purchase? Well, when they send their packet they should have land that’s right on the highway, and not a mile off the highway. And it has to be at least 25 acres. I told him not to mention all the tourists and hotel rooms. Everyone knows Vegas has lots of hotel rooms, but people traveling on planes don’t buy furniture, so they are completely useless to the numbers. I told him to deal with the population, the basic income levels, and how the area is growing, [that] he needed to stress how many colleges and college students are in the area. And how many families are moving into the area each month, and the number of new homes under construction. I told him to contact the person here who brokered the [West Chester] deal because … I wanted to make it clear that I did not think I brought an IKEA here. Where’d you “go to school” to learn their requirements? We wanted to buy an Ektorp sofa and we drove to the Pittsburgh store in 1999. When we got there, we found out it wasn’t in stock. I was like, “What do you mean you don’t have it in stock? It’s your best-selling couch.” But we did buy the chair that goes with the couch. About five months later we went to the Schaumburg (Ill.) store — but this time we decided to order the sofa ahead so we knew it was there. What does IKEA think of you and your site? I’d been watching them for a long time, but I happened to see a land management study done by a college group whose proposed client was IKEA. They actually dealt with IKEA to build this report as to what they were looking for. In the early days of the site I’d call to noodle around trying to talk with somebody. Before the news came out last August, it was hot and heavy with people – including reporters – coming to me. They’d say, “I’ll tell you if you tell me.” What happens to the site after the store finally opens? They acknowledge I exist and I think they’re amused by me, but I don’t think they want to hire me. I’ve applied and 26 STORES / FEBRUARY 2008 I’m hoping to stay up for a least a year to share shopping tips and tricks, and for people to post shopping reports. StORES — Janet Groeber WWW.STORES.ORG http://ohikea.com http://ohikea.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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