A half‑month clearance at seven soon‑to‑close IKEA megastores in China became less a sale than a spectacle: shoppers who had not visited the brand in years descended on the outlets in droves, ripping product tags off showroom pieces, dismantling beds and shelving, and treating the stores like a last‑chance flea market. Scenes of customers scrabbling for sofas and tableware, staff struggling to keep order, and viral videos of people carrying away display items prompted comparisons to the mass stampedes of Spring Festival travel.
IKEA’s decision to shutter seven large stores in early January and permit the sale of sample‑room furniture exposed both pent‑up demand for inexpensive, well‑designed home goods and the logistical vulnerabilities of the traditional big‑box model. Many shoppers traveled across cities to find bargains; social media influencers filmed their raids with action cameras; store workers reported stolen merchandise, emptied shelves and frantic attempts to record items for dispatch. Employees resorted to wearing notices on their backs and improvising new crowd‑control measures to cope with an unexpected deluge.
The episode is as much about nostalgia as it is about economics. For decades large home‑furnishing malls were part of China’s furniture buying ritual: moving house, a family outing, and a chance to furnish a new life. That ritual is evaporating under competing forces — online retail, changing household patterns and a preference among urban consumers for smaller, curated lifestyle shops closer to the city core. For many younger, frequently rented households, buying a scent diffuser or a lamp in a mall lifestyle store now suffices for the desire to craft a pleasing domestic space.
The broader industry data underlines the structural shift. Leading mall operators have seen occupancy rates slip below the generally accepted 95 percent threshold; from 2021 to 2024, the three largest home‑furnishing real‑estate firms averaged between 89 and 93 percent, according to market tracker iiMedia. Bankruptcy in the home‑decoration sector has been widespread: some 440 firms failed in 2024 alone. Market heavyweights have not been immune. Red Star Macalline, once the unambiguous market leader, warned of a dramatic 2025 net‑profit shortfall, and peers have shown similar stress. At the same time, smaller formats and domestic fast‑expanding brands are capitalizing on the gap: MUJI’s China operations grew profitably in 2025, and homegrown chains born online have rapidly scaled into physical retail.
The scramble in IKEA stores therefore reads both as a final burst of demand for a beloved retail experience and a symptom of a sector transitioning to new formats. Some domestic brands that started online have opened thousands of stores, outpacing traditional foreign rivals in sales and footprint. Retailers are responding: IKEA itself plans to open a string of small, urban stores in the coming years, and other players are leaning into “light home” formats that sell lifestyle goods rather than big furniture items.
For landlords, suppliers and manufacturers, the clearance drama signals a reckoning. Big‑box layouts with high fixed costs are increasingly hard to justify in a market that favors convenience, immediacy and experiential curation. For policymakers, a rise in retail vacancies and the downstream impact on employment and logistics merit attention. For brands, the lesson is clear: surviving China’s next retail cycle requires nimble formats, tighter integration with e‑commerce and an ability to meet the tastes of renters and younger urbanites who prize small, sharable purchases over full‑house renovations.