It's not so much that you get lost... it's that you have to walk past every other item in the store.. Compared to say "Harvey Norman" where if you want a couch -- you walk to the couches section..
It seems rather strange to describe this by saying that "delayed gratification" leads to more impulse buying. What leads to more impulse buying is making everyone look at all the merchandise.
Well, the sections are marked and you can just ignore everything else and walk straight to the couches section without stopping. One thing that does irk me about IKEA, atleast here in the Netherlands is that I first walk through their section with a bunch of model rooms, then I walk through the section where they display everything. After that you generally go downstairs (passing right by the restaurant), and walk through the "shopping" section and then the warehouse. The result? I see the same products 5 times, which is exactly what they want.
Right. I looked at the store map last time I went to Ikea and it looked quite similar to a space-filling curve. It doesn't seem that tricksy to imagine that Ikea a) wants to maximise its use of space and b) wants to ensure people look at all its merchandise. I suppose it is different to a regular kitchenware or furniture store though.
