So all the buzz this morning is that Ikea will be opening its store at 6am wednesday october 17 not too far away in Sunrise, FL. The sun-sentinel expects 25,000 people to show up on opening day, so I’ve decided there is no way in hell I am going to be visiting the new store for at least a couple of weeks.

What intrigues me about Ikea isn’t the low prices or design aesthetics (despite liking minimalist design), its the sheer enormity of their stores. Ikea appeals to the more predominant business side of me more than anything. The store is 300,000 freakin square feet! Any company that can manage to stock, and manage a store that size (and almost 300 of them) impresses me. They carry a bajillion products that they manufacture themselves (Q: is there a factory in the US?), and seem to have made amazing efficiencies everywhere imaginable in their supply chain.

So how can we transition these lessons in efficiency and scale to web development, or other industries?