In 2020 alone, over 800 million people shopped in IKEA. However, only certain types of people shop in this store, and they all have categorical behavior. Sure, there is the occasional exception who lives life on the edge, but most people fit into these seven categories. They are as follows; the businessman, the Pinterest user, the young family, the foodie, the large family, the expert Ikea shopper, and the babushka. 

The businessman. 50 minutes + phone calls. 
While wandering the alluring maze of Ikea in search of a new kitchen towel, Carl gets a phone call. Conveniently, he’s still in the couch section, so he taps his earpiece to receive the call, sits down on a black leather couch, and crosses his arms. You can tell it’s a very serious call when a man in a suit crosses his arms. He talks in a normal voice, with his head constantly searching the room for a potential business enemy, who might be trying to expose his plan of adding Cheetos to the break room - a very influential man. He keeps looking around frantically to make sure that nobody can make out what he is saying clearly. Carl, it’s just Cheetos, not security software! Carl doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the two, so he powerwalks out of the store, clasping his hands around his mouth.

The Pinterest user. 2 hours + finding where they parked.
After scouring the internet for something aesthetically pleasing to add to her minimalistic second-floor apartment, Amelia decides to go to Ikea to look around. Foolish Amelia. She thinks she can resist the temptation of a small cat house - and she doesn’t even have a cat! She really should just stick to creating an unbalanced avocado toast diet. Amelia ends up leaving the store with a three-thousand debt on her debit card. It’s not Pinterest Amelia, it’s Ikea. Go ahead and waste your life on Pinterest, but once you come to Ikea, you’re going to waste your life savings. She parked her car towards the entrance, as that’s the place she felt her car’s ‘spirit’ resided in. Trotting in her birkenstocks, she struggles to carry the sparking passion fruit juice, rubber forks, and floating wall cat house to her white 2016 jeep, careful not to drop anything.

The young family. 1.5-2 hours + arguing.
A baby girl on the way, a young couple decides to go to Ikea to start planning out the nursery. They’re having a hard time agreeing on the theme for the nursery - something that expert Ikea shoppers would know to do ahead of time. They clearly have only been to Ikea a few times in their lives. They stop in the food court to ‘destress’  - or in other words deplete the supply of chocolate cake. Once filled up on sugar and carbs, they make their way towards the exit a little happier and a lot fuller - but equally   disagreeable. Because they are past the age of breaking out, this pair instead breaks out into argument halfway through their shopping trip; the theme of the nursery, whether or not a young child should have bloody dragons in their room, all the usual stuff. By the time they get to the checkout, their cart is full, their hearts are empty, and they are ready for a long nap.

The foodie. 15-20 minutes + food court.
A truly wise and expert Ikea shopper, the foodie comes to Ikea not for the furniture - but the small market near the checkouts. As the experienced shopper they are, they enter through the exit, so as to prevent any unnecessary purchases of plants. Once inside, they carefully look at each and every item in the market, and select some crackers, frozen cinnamon rolls, and chocolate - quite the balanced diet! Balancing her assortment of goodies on her left arm, she trots over to the metallic sample counter, decorated with young children’s fingerprints. Grabbing a few squares of raspberry chocolate, she uses her spare arm to acquire two bags of frozen meatballs. On the way out, they snag the one-dollar ice cream cone, as Ikea is the only place with a working ice cream machine that sells a cone for a dollar.

The large family. 2-4 hours + tantrums.
The biggest menace to any shopping center; Kathy and her seven kids trample into Ikea, grabbing a shopping cart right away. Aged two through seventeen, her army of offspring quickly align into their positions, the youngest one in the front seat of the shopping cart, the five-year-old in the main basket of the cart, and the oldest two each managing the middle siblings. A truly expert formation - that lasts five minutes - if Kathy is lucky. They originally came for new bedspreads and potentially bedroom furniture, as the ranks of her army are aging and feel out of place in their current rooms. Apparently, not all of the soldiers have been informed of the shopping list, so they take it upon themselves to add fake plants, holographic clocks, and a back scratcher to the cart. Kathy tries to divert her soldiers’ valiant efforts to add back scratchers to their inventory, while simultaneously preventing her 10-year-old from entering the shopping cart. Their arguments, wails, and stomping form an out-of-tune imitation at one of Tchaikovsky’s overtures. At the checkout, an uprising between the ranks is started over a moose-shaped bar of Scandinavian chocolates, which Kathy quickly averted by shoving packs of Welch’s fruit snacks from her purse into her soldiers’ clammy hands. 

The expert IKEA shopper. 30 minutes + finding meatballs.
A middle-aged fellow, whose life is already together, has had many a trip to Ikea in their lifespan. Such an expert is so rare a find, that a name cannot be given to them. They know to park as close to the exit as possible so that a speedy, painless exit from the store is possible. They need a new bedside table and curtains, to change the look of their guest bedroom, and took all the necessary measurements beforehand so that they can get furniture that fits in the available space. For good measure, they take a picture of the space by the bed where the table will go, and the bare windows where the curtains will soon hang. Once they are in the store, whose layout they know by heart, they take all the necessary shortcuts to get to the curtains. They looked on Ikea’s website ahead of time to see the available patterns but needed to feel the curtains in the store before purchasing them. They walk out with just what they need - a bedside table and curtains, but take home a pack of frozen meatballs, whose label shows the furthest expiration date from now as possible, because it’s not every day that they will need to come to Ikea. 

The babushka. 1.5 hours + counting cash in her wallet.
After consulting the other babushkas in her 20-story apartment building and reading about it on her Ipad mini, the brave ex-soviet babushka decides to make the trip to Ikea. She knows the bus schedule by heart, so she calmly finishes her midday tea and walks to the bus stop - oversized bag and metal walker in hand. On the bus, she sits in the middle of the row of seats - so that she is not too cold from the flimsy doors, but still not too far away from the exit. Once she gets to Ikea, she sits on every single couch - just to test them out, she doesn’t actually need a new one. When she arrives at the lamps, she makes a point to inspect them, rationalize what they are made of, and complain about how flimsy they are. She selects a handy device to help her put shoes on easier, as well as a new white pillow for her couch. At the checkout, she picks out a premade cake and carefully examines the cashier as they scan all of her items.

Perhaps you don’t have your life as together as the expert shopper, and neither do I. Perhaps you aren’t as worn out by age and unfair prices as the babushka, and perhaps you aren’t as clinically exhausted as the young couple. Either way, taking a few tips here and there from all of them isn’t a bad idea, and neither is saving your money and not going to Ikea.