I don't get what the big deal is about this place. Seems like an over-hyped Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

The hype is cheap prices. Or so thats what they say, I mean come on... A doggie dish for 39 cents!! Thats enough to get me to drive "x" amount of miles at $3.00 + a gallon

I think the hype is value. There are a lot of places that sell cheap stuff, but I think IKEA sells better looking cheap stuff at an acceptable quality level. For example, you're not going to get solid oak bookshelves there for $150, but you can get attractively stained and finished solid wood bookshelves. Plus most stuff is well designed (ie, someone actually thought about the purpose of the item and designed for it) IMHO. Not everyone wants a $3000 entertainment center or desire a $300 Sauder fake wood stuff, though a lot of IKEA stuff is fake wood but in a lot of styles.

By chance my folks and I went there today. We were heading for my mom's glasses in Westland, and happened to drive by it. We decided to take a look. My first impressions: 1. Parking is terrible. I understand it's the grand opening period , but jeez, it took us like 15mins to park. 2. The store is very large, yet ergnomically designed, especially when considering the amount of retail they have. 3. Definitely some interesting furniture. Not your everyday funiture store, that's for sure. 4. Prices were okay. Nothing ground-breaking, but for the quality of the products with the 'European' touch, I thought it was okay.

I can see why people enjoy the store. However, I'm not quite sure all they hype behind it is justified. Just my 2 pennies.