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Comment by gniv | Hacker News Reader

> Look at an example on the floor and then order from the warehouse upstairs.

So.. like Ikea?

Sorta. At Ikea (at least near me), you have to go find the items on the warehouse shelf yourself, and bring them to the registers still.

At Best (and Service Merchandise) you collected tickets for the items you wanted and brought those up to the front. They'd enter your order, you'd pay and wait. The items would be picked and sent on a conveyor to the front.

Probably the most successful example of this approach was Service Merchandise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise).

Never heard of them, but reading the link, yes same idea.

So like Argos?

Do Argos' have showrooms or open floors? My experience, 10 years back, was limited to a looking through a catalogue, punching in a barcode into their stock checking device, and waiting for our number to appear on the screen in the waiting area after having paid.

Very small and incomplete ones. It does sound like the Best store was slightly different in its model, more like an Ikea/Argos cross.

Better than Ikea, then.

More like Service Merchandise, if you remember those...

The author of the article thought so.

> ... They owned Best Products, a catalogue retailer that sold discounted goods in hybrid showroom/warehouses (sort of like Ikea). Selling everything from hair dryers to toaster ovens to doll-houses, they were proto-big box stores ...

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