IKEA Cracking Down on Napping: Furniture Store Reportedly Wants to Implement 'No Sleeping While Shopping' Rule in China
IKEA is attempting to ban sleeping on furniture displays in its Beijing stores, according to Curbed.com.
The furniture store wants to implement the new rule "no sleeping while shopping," since it is the norm to catch people taking a nap on their merchandise.
Photos show some families peacefully sleeping on couches and beds. Some go as far as taking their shoes off and covering up with blankets.
Sleeping customers in Beijing IKEA stores were the center of the photo essay "Chinese Shoppers' Penchant for Catching Z's in IKEA," Wall Street Journal reports.
IKEA spokesman Josefin Thorell said the furniture company was fine with people taking naps there. Simply hanging out in the store and taking naps is the norm just as shopping there is.
"This is a spontaneous phenomenon. Some customers who enter the Chinese stores sleep in the bed. IKEA in China does nothing to prevent nor anything to attract sleepers," Thorell said.
"But we don't see it as a problem, we're happy people feel at home in our stores. Certainly, it entails a little extra work for the staff, purely practically. But on the other hand, if customers try out our furniture and like it, we can sell an extra mattress or two," he added.
There were some issues with customers who make too much noise when they hang out in the stores or who were not willing to leave their spots when politely asked.
IKEA mainly wants to implement the "no sleeping while shopping" rule because of shoppers who come there to sleep with no intentions of buying anything, Shanghaiist reports. There was also an incident in the past where a little boy peed on one of the beds as his grandmother helped him to urinate in a bottle, according to South China Morning Post.
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