Fredericton — In the last two months, IKEA Canada has announced seven new collection points for Atlantic Canada, including pickup centres in three New Brunswick cities: Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. However, there is still no word of a full-fledged IKEA store opening in the region, at least not anytime soon.
“Before we officially set up shop, we have to make sure that Maritimers can actually comprehenn… er, that is, are willing to embrace the IKEA experience,” said Amanda Fitzgerald, IKEA Canada’s expansion communications specialist.
Specifically, Fitzgerald said that, statistically, New Brunswickers appeared to need more “prep time” than their Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia counterparts in getting used to the IKEA brand. She did not state what these “statistics” that the company was looking at were.
“To help the New Brunswick customer base better understand IKEA’s products and services, we’re going to establish a special website tailored to the unique needs of New Brunswickers,” said Fitzgerald. “The new site will be one of a kind in the way that it will include only five words: IKEA, Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton. Saint John is technically two words and the ‘and’ doesn’t count, that’s just there for the sake of grammar.”
Grammar is defined as the process in which sentences are constructed, following the rules of the English language and adhering to basic morphology and syntax. Morphology is a pattern/formation of words in a given language encompassing the inflection, derivation and composition of vernacular usage. Syntax is the study of the rules of language that dictate the meaning of words, phrases, structure, et cetera.
For some reason, IKEA Canada requested that The Manatee explain those terms.
“The new, New Brunswick-friendly website will be all pictures!” said Fitzgerald. “Our company logo ‘IKEA’ will appear in the top corner of various pages but other than that, New Brunswick shoppers will only have to recognize the name of the city they want their item sent to. Not one single word will appear anywhere else on the site. According to our research, ‘words’ tend to confuu… I mean, ‘slow down’ N.B. shoppers. Those determined, very, very competent — and literate — N.B. shoppers!”
The picture-only Ikea.ca/nb will launch later this week. If any part of the new URL causes frustration to New Brunswickers, Fitzgerald stresses that, “If you can at least manage to type ‘IKEA NB’ into the ‘Google’ thingy, any idiot will be able to find it.”
Though IKEA Canada would not disclose their rationale for the new initiative, The Manatee acknowledges that it’s probably a good idea to eliminate words from the ordering process, considering that New Brunswick is dead last in literacy. Statistics show that 18.5 percent of New Brunswickers are illiterate or have literacy levels “below the acceptable average,” 54.1 percent of students are reading at what is considered only an “appropriate level,” and 53 percent of adults are classified as “functionally illiterate.”