If you’ve ever strolled through IKEA, you’ve probably gotten the sense that you were in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory — enjoying yourself well enough and fascinated by the sights, but clueless as to how to get the hell out of there.

The Daily Mail interviews a British professor who opines that the labyrinthine design is meant to give you the sense of feeling lost in order to get you to spend more time in the store, thus causing you to buy more stuff.

The professor says:

“You’re directed through their marketplace area where a staggering amount of purchases are impulse buys, things like lightbulbs or a cheap casserole that you weren’t planning on getting.

“Here the trick is that because the lay-out is so confusing you know you won’t be able to go back and get it later, so you pop it in your trolley as you go past.”

If you manage to make it through IKEA without spending money, what do you do to win these Swedish mind games?

Why shoppers find it so hard to escape from Ikea: Flatpack furniture stores are ‘designed just like a maze’ [The Dauly Mail via Newsvine]

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