Customers would enter single file, pick up a basket, shuffle through a turnstile, and then head down a winding one-way route that would guide them past every item in the store, anticipating the hell of today’s Ikea by about fifty years. The path they were forced onto would pass only heavily branded prepackaged goods—items that could speak for themselves and didn’t need a clerk to recommend them—which customers could size up, fondle, select, and replace to their heart’s content. Finally, after winding through the store, the line would empty out at a bank of checkout counters where the customer
...more
