Posts tagged with "shopping"

Gekås – the temple of freezer bags and socks

Posted by jennie 13 Comments
Dec 14 2009

Imagine Sweden on a beautiful day in July. Imagine the warm breeze, the fresh air, the wide fields, the endless coastlines and the great big smorgasbord of things to do, see and experience. What would you pick? Would you spend the day on the beach? Take a boattrip in the archipelago (skärgård)? A walk in the woods? A stroll around a little fishing village?

Well, let me tell you what the first choice would be for thousands of Swedes. They  (I…) would get in a steaming hot car and travel hundreds of kilometers, to the little town of Ullared in the south west of Sweden. Ullared has 830 inhabitants, a firestation, a hotel and a primary school. But (you can see the “but” coming, can’t you?) Ullared also has Gekås, Scandinavia’s biggest department store (varuhus) and one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions.

Over 20 000 people enter the doors of Gekås every day and on a good day, they (we…) spend över 20 million SEK in there! (1.6 million GBP, 2.9 millon USD – roughly). It might not sound like an overwhelming sum of money at first, but when you take a closer look at what Gekås mostly sells and think about the number of Swedes, it is pretty respectable.
Gekås is four football pitches big and packed to the limit with freezer bags (fryspåsar), socks, washing up liquid, shampoo, cotton balls, underwear, sweets, toys… you name it, Gekås has it and it’s cheap (billigt). You can even stay the night or a fortnight in the Gekås campsite or the Gekås motel in case you plan to shop until you drop.

But Gekås is much more than an house filled with bargains. Since founded in 1963, Gekås has become an insitution that you either love or hate – even if you haven’t been – and everyone has something to say about it. The stories about the department store are many and amazing (people almost dying of exhaustion in the long queues, people fistfighting over a parking space…) and this winter, Gekås got its own tv-program. One of Sweden’s most popular tv-channels spent the whole summer filming customers (kunder) and sales assistants and believe it or not, it became one of the most popular tv-shows this year. Ullared part II is already scheduled for next year and “Gekås the Christmas special” is on tonight. If you are lucky, you can win a pack of freezer bags signed by the boss of Gekås. And that is not a joke.

So forget Stockholm, nevermind the north and don’t bother with the coastline. If you want to experience the true Swedish soul and get yourself a trolly filled with bargains at the same time – Ullared is the place to be. Just remember to bring comfortable shoes and very sharp elbows.

Foto:Daniel Jälmbratt/Kanal 5

Gekås in numbers:
Every year, the customers buy 100 million paper cups, 12 million rolls of baking paper, 1 million schampoo bottles, 12 million pair of socks and 2 000 tons of sweets.
The average customer drive 150 kilometer to get to Ullared.
Gekås has Sweden’s biggest parking lot with 2 000 parking spaces.

Have you been to Ullared? Or would you rather eat someone’s dirty socks? Share your thoughts or experience and you might win a pack of freezer bags signed by the Swedish blog team!

Varor Du Brukar Köpa?

Posted by Transparent Language 5 Comments
Oct 16 2008

I’ve been down with flu for quite some time now, and needless to say, I got bored. So bored in fact, that I actually started to read the stuff that the Ica supermarket chain sends us in the mail. Yeah, I was THAT bored. But I’m glad I read it, because now I’m thinking whether or not I should actually email Ica and tell them they’re about 15 years too late to claim to be “first in the world.”

But let’s start from the beginning. Ica runs a few different kinds of supermarkets, all with the word “Ica” in their names. You have a regular Ica, Ica Maxi and Ica Kvantum.

Ica Maxi is the largest store they have. And just so that every nimwit knows it’s large, they call it “maxi,” which for me always brings sanitary pads to mind. Don’t you think Ica Maxi would be a great name for a maxi pads brand? You’d have your Always, your Libresse, and your Ica. Sadly, it isn’t so. It’s just a supermarket. And just how big is it? Think of a midget Walmart and you have your average Ica Maxi store.

They sell everything, from toilet brushes to school supplies to frozen foods. And their prices are OK. At least in our town. But you can get even better deals if you use their loyalty store card. If you spend 2500 SEK in one month, you receive a coupon for 25 SEK. Isn’t that great? No, I know, not really. But hey, I’ll take what I can get. And because to get this coupon you need to swipe your card every time you buy something, the company knows exactly what you’re buying and where.

Once a month you get your Ica Buffé magazine, along with a selection of discount coupons and your “big” coupon for 25 SEK (could be 50 SEK if you manage to spend 5 thousand a month).

And this month, this is what Ica had to say:

“Lägre pris på varor Du brukar köpa!
Vi på ICA år först i världen att testa personliga erbjudanden till alla våra stamkunder. Vi kallar det “Mina varor.”

Which means:
“Lower prices on items you regularly buy!
We at Ica are first in the world to test personal offers to all our regular customers. We call it “my products.”

Which is indeed very sweet, but totally incorrect. “First in the world”? In their dreams, maybe, yeah. Shoprite in the US (and I think A&P too) offered a similar scheme back in the mid-90s.

And why is it that they say “varor du brukar köpa”? I haven’t bought any of this stuff in the last year! My suspicion is, they look for a thing you bought maybe once, because they know you’re not likely to buy it again, and so they give you a discount on it.

I much preferred the previous coupon version, where they randomly picked sale items and they were on sale for everybody. At least that way I was open to trying new things, because a girl just can’t resist it if it’s on sale, right?

Swedish Checkout Habits

Posted by Transparent Language 3 Comments
Jun 30 2008

Sweden is a very organized country. Everything has its place and there are rules and regulations for just about anything. Some rules don’t even need to be officially written down, they technically don’t exist, yet people here follow them anyway. That of course makes life a lot easier in many different situations – when boarding a local bus, for example. Everyone lines up neatly to get on and waits their turn. Even when it’s raining.

When entering a store, library, clinic, even ER, everyone lines up nicely to get a “nummerlapp” (= queue number, which you get from a special machine that dispenses them, normally somewhere near the entrance) and then patiently waits their turn. Nummerlapp is not a strictly Swedish invention, I have seen it utilized in such far-flung locales as India and Cape Verde, but Sweden, without a doubt, is the country that has turned it into an art form.

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