Chinese Shoppers Love To Nap In IKEA, A Lot

We've all felt it. After wandering around from showroom to showroom, arguing the merits of a particular style of bookcase to a partner, you just want to lie down. Relax. Close your eyes. Well, in China, they're doing just that: Chinese shoppers are literally napping on IKEA furniture — and I'm talking a shoes-off-pillow-over-face-potential-drooling-situation kinda nap. The best part? IKEA's welcoming it with open arms. Oh, IKEA. We always knew you were wonderful.

So China's hot. Like, really hot (it was in the 90s this week). It's also pretty smoggy in certain areas, as we well know. In many places, it's also pretty cramped, and air-conditioning isn't necessarily all that easy to come by. Which is where the Swedish furniture provider comes into the picture, with it's cool, cool rooms just filled with comfortable beds, and sofas, and chairs, and did we mention beds?

According to the Daily Mail, eight of the ten largest IKEA stores in the world are in China. And these Chinese stores are incredibly accommodating to any customer who so happens to require a little shut-eye — in fact, they've even adjusted themselves for that very purpose.Said IKEA spokesman Josefin Thorell to the Wall Street Journal:

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. 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.

This is in keeping with the retailer's chill attitude in China, an attitude which has definitely been working for it thus far — in 2012, Chinese IKEA saw forty-five million visitors, the BBC reports, and so a given store will see roughly 15,000 visitors on a given weekday and up to 30,000 on a weekend. In fact, IKEAs in China see 40 percent more customer traffic that IKEAs in other countries.

"The stores are designed with extra room displays given the tendency for customers to make a visit an all-day affair," Kevin Frayer, a photographer who took pictures of the sleepy shoppers, told Business Insider. "Store management does not discourage shoppers from sleeping on Ikea furniture, even marking them with signs inviting customers to try them out."

And try them out they certainly do. In the pictures below you will see women napping with fans over their faces, snuggled with their children, passed out open-mouthed on chairs, and more.

Lest you be quick to judge Chinese shoppers for snoozing at the retailers, bear in mind that IKEA has been home to much weirder activities in the United States. The last couple of years have seen not one but two weddings held at IKEA. Hey, that's one way to make sure you get what you want from your gift registry.

Images: Getty Images (10)