IKEA's Majura Park store may not open until later this year but interior designers with European accents are already researching what makes Canberrans tick, one living room at a time.
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Up to 130 Canberra families have welcomed IKEA designers inside their homes to ask them a forensic series of questions about their eating habits, social lives, lifestyle choices and aspirations.
Tiffany Buckins, head of interior design at IKEA Australia, said feedback from the home visits would dictate what products were stocked at the Majura Park store when it finally opened.
"We're interested in what Canberrans are doing in their homes, their activities, what their needs are, what frustrates them, and what they dream of," she said.
"It takes us about 90 minutes to complete the visit, and although we normally concentrate on just one room in the house, we're focusing on the whole home in Canberra."
More than 1000 Canberrans registered to welcome IKEA designers inside their homes, the highest registration rate for any IKEA program in Australia.
Sitting inside Lali Burton's home in Narrabundah, IKEA interior designer Debbie Bon said it was fantastic to see excitement about the store more than six months before the launch.
Ms Buckins said the Swedish flat-pack giants had learned a lot about the average ACT household and the Majura Park store would be stocked accordingly.
"What we've learned about Canberra so far is almost everyone we have visited has an outdoor garden primarily with tomatoes or herbs and people have a real sense of pride in knowing where their food has come from," she said.
"The homes tend to be a bit bigger in Canberra, and while many people have the dream of a large kitchen island, that might not be the reality for a lot of people"
Ms Buckins said the home visits were routine across Australia, and were a crucial step to ensuring their stores appealed to customers.
"We do it in all of our stores three times a year just to make sure we are on top of everything and understand the changes that are happening inside peoples' homes based on seasons," she said.
Ms Buckins said the home study results made it clear Canberrans led different lifestyles to those in Sydney and Melbourne.
"People in Australia tend to eat out more frequently than those in Canberra, so it's quite niche; this wanting to spent time in your own home with a togetherness aspect," she said.
"A lot of people like to have guests over for a games night, and that is actually quite unique, so we will reflect that by having storage options for board games and dining room table solutions."
