I love Ikea. I’ve been looking at their printed catalog and websites for a while now, but I just had my first Ikea store experience.

Wow.

I didn’t realize how huge it would be. It’s immense, intimidating even, and I had no idea where to start. Then I saw the map. Upstairs to the showroom. Downstairs to the warehouse.

So I jumped on the escalator and headed upstairs to see all the Ikea furniture, textiles and accessories doing what they do best—making good design look effortless. Think of any room in your house, and they have at least 5 examples of each. Home office? You got it. Living room? Naturally. Bathroom? You betcha’. There are even a few “small living” spaces that showcase design solutions for apartments with 250-400 square feet of room.

They’ve done a great job cultivating the customer experience. Arrows on the floor and informative signage keep you from getting lost, and if you forget your tape measure and pencil, don’t worry. Every hundred feet or so, there’s a note station featuring disposable measuring tapes, graph paper, maps of the showroom and pencils, so you can take notes about what you like, figure out if the Ektorp sofa will fit in your living room, pick out an entertainment cabinet to go with it, and find it all easily in the warehouse. There’s even a full service restaurant because you’re going to spend so much time there you will eventually get hungry.

Ikea has planned for your entire shopping adventure and made it easy for you to find a solution that works for your lifestyle within your limitations. How can we be more like Ikea? How can we offer great products and services that give our clients and customers the best solution for their dollar?

Be creative. Ikea has attractive solutions that maximize the functionality of even the smallest spaces. Even if our customers have tiny budgets, we can deliver solutions that maximize their dollar.

Be helpful. Ikea paints arrows on the floor and provides measuring tapes, pencils and maps. We can provide advice, tips and insights that our customers can benefit from.

Be flexible. Ikea’s Ektorp Sofa is a standard 3 seat sofa with a removable cover, so when you’re tired of the Byvik multicolor flora print, you can switch to the Blekinge white. And when that gets dirty, you can put it in the wash and slip on the Klinto Blue print. We can bend our return policy, make a special order, or schedule an after-hours appointment.

Their strategy works. Ikea has enjoyed steady growth over the last ten years and now has more than 300 stores in more than 35 countries and annual sales of more than 21.5 billion Euros.