1. How is the IKEA operations design different from that of most furniture retail operations? IKEA’s operations are of large scaled and purpose built though some furniture retailers also have large operations and making use of premises within town or shopping malls. Locations of car parks are also located close to major highway intersections and it is due to the fact of IKEA’s operation design that encourages high volume of throughput. This high volume means that many of fixed costs to run IKEA operation such as administrative costs, energy costs, and local taxes are spread across a high volume of sales transactions. This helps IKEA to reduce the overall cost of making a sale which is a strategy to offer good value for money. The variety of products available in IKEA is relatively larger scale compared to other furniture retail operations. An example would be small items such as kitchenware and glassware to larger items such as tables, shelving systems and sofas. Modular design of some IKEA’s design such as shelving systems allows variety to be extended even further from a few basic component parts. These components can be assembled easily together (by the customers) in tons of different ways which offers an almost infinite combinations. However, variety of service is relatively narrow as most products are sold in cartons, there are little interactions with sales staff as customers are left to make decisions by themselves (though advice is available upon requested),