This Is The Age At Which You Outgrow IKEA, Research Shows

If you’re in your mid-thirties or older, there’s a good chance you groan at the thought of yet another trip through that Swedish superstore.

According to a study done by Priceonomics, adults are tired of IKEA by the time they’re 34 years old. That’s the perfect age to stop wasting three hours putting together a three-star coffee table.

By looking through 10,000 user responses provided by Earnest, Priceonomics found that the peak time for you to shop at IKEA is when you’re in your mid-twenties through mid-thirties. This is being dubbed as the IKEA Decade. Believe it or not, IKEA is the only store where the average customer is less than 30 years old.

There are some theories as to why IKEA is so popular with this age group:

One is that young people love food and cheap furniture. People can go into any IKEA and enjoy Swedish meatballs while they wait for their furniture. Also, young people have more drive (and more time on their hands) to put together a bed that will break in three years. Young couples are also often strapped for cash, and the cheapest place to get furniture is inside the blue-and-yellow warehouse.

Once we’re in our mid-thirties, there’s no way we’re going to IKEA with our partner—unless we’re looking for a divorce or a nasty break-up. If we’re arguing about which set of knifes we want in our home, how can we trust our partner not to stab us in the back with those knives? But for young couples shopping for good-looking furniture at low prices, IKEA is the perfect place to fight over a state-of-the-art toilet brush.

The older we get, the more often we go to Home Depot (the place to go for those in their forties) or Lowes (favorite hangout spot for those in their fifties).

As for other trends, men go to Home Depot more often while women prefer Bed, Bath & Beyond. Almost half of all Earnest clients living in Oregon go to IKEA, while only 3% of Idaho clients check out their IKEA.

To make things more interesting, the top four states with the most Earnest clients visiting IKEA only have one store in the entire state (Oregon, Kansas, Utah and Minnesota). Since IKEA started their U.S. takeover in the Mid-Atlantic, there are fewer stores in the Midwestern and Western states.