IKEA, known as the "Disney of the home furnishing world", announced in early January that it would close seven large stores in various places. Subsequently, these seven stores each carried out "clearance discount" activities that lasted for half a month. Not only are the products on sale discounted, but even the products in the usual sample rooms can be disassembled and taken away. As soon as this news came out, everyone suddenly thought of IKEA, which they had not been to for a long time.
In order to save money, some people even rush to buy wool across cities, just to get the cheapest wool at IKEA.
Sofas, sideboards and tableware have become the "three-piece IKEA clearance set" that almost everyone must grab.
I have been deceived by "emergency demolition and crazy sales" for most of my life, and finally encountered the real thing once.
If you don’t make a good purchase, you will be sorry for your wallet.
IKEA, which is about to close its store, has thus ushered in its own "glorious funeral."
IKEA on clearance
It was robbed by the middle class and turned into a "Spring Festival Transport Site"
From the moment you enter IKEA during the clearance period, it is a training course on the involution of life:
No matter how good your starting point is, there will always be people who work harder than you.
No matter how hard you run, you will always find someone flying to compete with you.
The last time Old G saw someone running so fast was when he was competing for the first incense in a temple in Guangdong last year.
Clearance period IKEA has the strongest outdoor attributes of all indoor locations.
Because shooting vlogs for shopping elsewhere can be done with a mobile phone, but you have to use an action camera to shoot shopping vlogs at IKEA.
A blogger originally wanted to record the process of shopping for goods in the bedding area, but unexpectedly witnessed the reappearance of the "Foshan Shadowless Hand" that had been lost for many years.
The profound skills made the comment section ask: Don’t you have any pillows at home?
In addition to quick decisiveness, real buyers also need to master the bite-like fighting style.
There is never any shame in taking action for prey.
After all, only you can understand the effort and sweat that goes into climbing two floors of shelves.
It's so close, why should I let it go?
As a combination of i and f people, old G always sneers at the saying that "Chinese people love to queue up".
Until he got up at nine o'clock to wait in line for IKEA, and found that there were more people who had arrived first than those who watched the flag raising in Tiananmen Square.
The store opened at 9:30, but by 9 o'clock there was no end of the queue.
The store that opened at twelve o'clock was already surrounded by eleven o'clock.
Picture source: Xiaohongshu user @疴 Orange
Entering the parking lot is like squirming, and changing people in the bathroom is like squeezing in the subway.
At the checkout counter, if you push the shopping cart faster, you can shovel the people in front of you into the cart.
Looking at this posture, the Terracotta Warriors felt that they were outnumbered.
Picture source: Xiaohongshu user @Hey, wake up quickly
It was the staff who broke down earlier than the customers.
As we all know, working overtime during the clearance period is like suddenly receiving an order for the company's annual meeting when a milk tea shop is one minute away from getting off work.
Not to mention he was about to be laid off, and he almost lost his life.
Although there is no need to replenish goods, the workload of maintaining order and placing goods normally is already several times that of usual times.
Several people were so worried that they couldn't sleep at night, so they could only stand in the exhibition hall and think of solutions.
Another source of stress for the staff is that the customers who come in are already in a state of "hungry".
They want to buy everything they can see.
Although IKEA officials did say that some items in the exhibits and model rooms can be disassembled and bought back.
But everything that can be carried has been looted by the first wave of "early birds", and there is nothing left on the shelves.
But all the Chinese people who will be strong in life are here, so we can’t go back empty-handed.
You can't even try to run away if you hold a bowl halfway with a pair of chopsticks, and you can't let go of a bundle of plastic wrap that ten people are holding on to.
Picture source: Xiaohongshu user @小春佳不狠
Even more eager customers are directly targeting office supplies.
A staff member was recording delivery information for a customer. When he came back, someone removed the computer screen.
Some staff members were so busy that they took off their work clothes and rested for a while. Then they came back and were taken away by someone else.
Not to mention the TV used to display product introductions and the shelves used to stock goods.
If I were not standing on the floor, I would be afraid that the guests would lift up the wooden floor and take it home.
In order to defend their right to work and reject the nature of their products, IKEA staff have lost all means during the past half month.
Since you can't control it by posting notices everywhere, you might as well stick them on your back and turn yourself into a walking bulletin board.
Take it away if you like, just don't carry me.
Faced with such a hot rush for goods, netizens couldn’t help but comment:
If it was so popular every day, IKEA would never close these 7 stores.
But after all, everyone knows in their hearts that this kind of scene is just a "reflection of the past".
The crazy rush for goods during the clearance period is more like the mentality of "immediately out of print, keep a souvenir collection", it is just a flash in the pan.
In fact, the closure of IKEA stores is not an individual phenomenon.
Home furnishing hypermarkets that were once popular across the country are actually experiencing decline and are being forced to transform into "small but beautiful".
Do home furnishing hypermarkets disappear in bulk?
"Home City" is actually the childhood memories of many people.
Whether it is the "brainwashing" advertisements on TV or the real-time broadcast of store locations on the traffic radio, the names of major home furnishing cities are deeply imprinted in people's minds.
Over the past 30 years, moving to a new home and then going to a furniture store to purchase furniture in bulk has always been a joyful experience for the whole family.
This place carries everyone's beautiful imagination of their own home life, and also meets people's needs to build an ideal family.
However, the grand scene of Home Furnishing City can no longer be reproduced.
Picture source: Xiaohongshu user@日无码
Compared with the frequent "thunderstorms" in Home Furnishing City in the past two years, IKEA's exit is quite decent.
In recent years, when people mention Furniture City, they almost only think of bad news.
Red Star Macalline was once an absolute giant in China’s home furnishing industry.
In 2015 and 2018, Red Star Macalline was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange, becoming the first "A+H" dual-share listed company in the home furnishing industry, with a market value that once exceeded 260 billion yuan. In 2021, Macalline has more than 400 shopping malls, with total assets reaching 135.188 billion yuan, and revenue reaching 15.513 billion yuan.
Picture source: Xiaohongshu user @苏西水pi
Red Star Macalline, which once ranked first in revenue and net profit in the home furnishing distribution industry, issued a huge loss notice at the beginning of 2026 after two consecutive years of losses:
According to preliminary calculations by the financial department, the company expects to achieve a net profit of -22.5 billion yuan to -15 billion yuan in 2025.
Easyhome, which was renamed "Juran Smart Home" in 2025, is the second-largest player in China's furniture industry. Together with Red Star Macalline, it once occupied more than 40% of the domestic mid-to-high-end home furnishing store market.
However, after Juran Home turned a loss for the first time in 2025, Wang Linpeng, the actual controller and chairman of Juran Smart Home, unfortunately fell to his death.
Zeng Yuzhou, the founder of "Beautiful Furniture", which once had the largest store density in the home furnishing industry in South China, also fell into a similar tragedy in the same month.
The news about Home Furnishing City on the Internet is also deserted.
Empty and deserted are almost the only features.
Unlike IKEA, China's traditional home furnishing cities do not belong to a single brand, but are more like brand collection stores.
In the same furniture city, different furniture brands gather and form by paying rent.
Furniture City itself is actually in the commercial real estate business.
Therefore, the commercial real estate industry generally regards the occupancy rate as the core indicator to measure the health of project operations, and an occupancy rate of 95% is regarded as the life-or-death line for operations.
When occupancy falls below this threshold, it is a sign of poor operations.
According to statistics from Yibang Power, from 2021 to 2024, the average occupancy rate of the three leading home real estate companies, Easyhome, Red Star Macalline, and Fussenmei, generally remained in the 89%-93% range, which continues to be lower than the industry safety line.
As a result, as many as 440 companies will go bankrupt in 2024 in the home decoration industry alone;
In the first half of 2025 alone, 132 companies have closed down.
Picture source: Xiaohongshu user @太罗马瓜
The reasons for the decline of large-scale furniture cities are complex. The cooling of the market, the diversion of e-commerce, and changes in people’s concepts of purchasing furniture are all involved. However, one fact remains unchanged:
People just don’t go to Furniture City anymore, it doesn’t mean they don’t buy furniture anymore.
In sharp contrast to the decline of Home Furnishing City -
"Light home" stores and "lifestyle" stores in shopping malls are emerging in bulk.
Among overseas brands, MUJI, which has been criticized every year, is the one that has made a breakthrough in the home furnishing market.
Muji (Shanghai)'s 2025 fiscal year financial report shows that there will be a net increase of 24 stores in China in 2025, and operating profit will increase by 31.5% year-on-year.
Among them, the home furnishing category has grown significantly and is the main support for profit growth.
Image source: Xiaohongshu user@大峰的家
China's local home furnishing stores also have "hot items" that are rising sharply.
The affordable series includes Genji Muyu, which has transformed from e-commerce to offline physical stores.
This brand, which was only established in 2010, has more than 1,300 offline stores as of January 2026. The sales scale surpassed IKEA China and took the top spot in China’s new furniture retail market.
Industry insiders estimate that its revenue in 2025 will exceed 20 billion yuan.
Fanji, a mid-to-high-end domestic home furnishing brand, has opened a total of 13 stores in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Nanjing as of December 2025.
Sharing the shopping experience of domestic home furnishing brands has also become a new trend on the Internet.
When more and more people choose to buy furniture from e-commerce and go to shopping malls to visit small lifestyle and home furnishing stores——
Driving to Home City has become a backward way of life.
Humanity will always need furniture stores
No matter whether home furnishing hypermarkets are gradually dying out, the sense of satisfaction that imagining a better life in home furnishing stores brings to people has never disappeared.
Little K has been renting an apartment in Beijing for 8 years, and the only large piece of furniture he has ever bought is a double sofa.
When Beidiao moved for the seventh time, a leg of the sofa was broken. After much hesitation, Little K threw away this almost only piece of furniture that belonged to her.
In Xiao K’s actual experience, people who rent a house are “not worthy” of buying furniture.
Almost every house contains furniture left behind by the landlord.
Most of the time they are dilapidated, and sometimes the furniture is even older than those born in the 2000s.
But without exception, every landlord does not agree to throw away their old furniture.
Source: Little K
Little K's imagination about decorating a new home often ends with these dilapidated furniture.
"Customized furniture" and "high-end kitchen and bathroom" are out of reach for Little K, who is over 30 but still renting a house.
After all, I am only living in a rented house temporarily, and it is difficult to invest in large furniture in a short-term residence. Even if you really buy a lamp or an assembly rack on a whim, it feels like placing a flower on a tombstone.
Compared with the home cities far away in the suburbs, the "lifestyle pavilion" opened in the shopping mall can always bring more happiness to Little K.
Although I still can't buy my own bed and wardrobe, I can finally build my life by buying small items such as aromatherapy, candles, and night lights.
Whether it’s large or small, buying furniture is always connected to people’s imagination of a better life.
Looking at the home that is gradually becoming fuller and even redundant, every new small object is proof of my efforts to make my life better.
For renters like Xiao K, IKEA in the past and the lifestyle stores now opened in shopping malls are the only offline ways for them to get in touch with this kind of beautiful life imagination.
Almost every little K will remember the surprise and joy of entering "Home Disney" when he visited IKEA for the first time. However, as time passed by, she gradually lost the strength to go to IKEA in the suburbs to get in touch with the better life.
However, there is another good news:
Although IKEA has closed its stores, it has not withdrawn from China.
And they also plan to open more than 10 small stores in key cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen within two years.
From this perspective, IKEA and the imagination of a better life it brings have never gone far.
Just see you next time, it will take a while.
Perhaps the distance between little K and her beautiful life is also the same.