> IKEA likes to find ways to get you into their physical stores because they know you’re going to end up buying more than just the items you came for.
If only they actually had a decent density of stores in the US. I live north of a major metro area (Boston) and I have to drive over 1.5 hours to an IKEA. I used to live in Raleigh, NC and the closest one was over 3.5 hours away.
Although maybe this is part of the strategy, getting you to travel a long distance to there stores in order to keep you there.
Kinda hope they have a good way to migrate Skype numbers. I have one that I used sometimes when I don't want to give my real number. I have been meaning to look into alternatives. I think I can port it to some other provider, but haven't found one I liked.
In theory when you live within walking distance to a grocery store it becomes much easier to do many smaller trips, rather than a once weekly "shopping trip". Your right though this article doesn't really talk about that.
We live in a city down the street from a grocery store. We sort of treat the store as an extended pantry. When we need to make something, we just go down to the store and get the stuff and make it. Door to door time to the store is 2-3 minutes, the lines are usually never long because it's a smaller store but they have about as much staff as a larger one.
Whenever we need to get a little more we just bring one of the carts from the store up to our apartment via the elevator and bring it back.
As for the rest of the things. Again if you can walk or take good transit there is no need to drive.