New research has uncovered Northern Ireland’s most ‘fun’ stores to shop in.

The survey, commissioned by Saturn Visual Solutions and carried out by OnePoll, asked 2,000 UK adult full-time and part-time workers what the three most ‘fun’ stores they’d visited were.

Nearly a quarter of adults (23%) in Northern Ireland said that IKEA is the most fun store they’d been to. The Swedish, modern furniture retailer topped the chart across the whole UK sample group with it coming top with both females (26%) and males (16%). IKEA stores were also more popular with the younger generation, with more than a quarter (26%) of under-34-year-olds across the UK naming it as the most fun store, as opposed to 16 per cent of over 55- year-olds.

Second on Northern Ireland’s ‘most fun shopping experience’ list was TK Maxx - with seventeen per cent of respondents enjoying its constantly changing selections of reduced-price brand name and designer products.

DIY is clearly a popular pastime in NI with B&Q voted the third most fun store by 13 per cent of Northern Irish respondents. By way of a comparison, just six per cent of people across the rest of the UK voted the same.

Electrical goods shops, The Apple Store, and, Curry’s, were in joint fourth place with 10 per cent of people voting for them.

Despite having fallen into administration twice (once in 2013 and once in 2018), HMV was ranked fifth in the list.

Saturn CEO, Chris Welsh, said: “The retail sector is in a state of flux at the moment. One of the most important things retailers seem to be overlooking is that shopping should be a fun and enjoyable activity, which is why we thought this research was long overdue. It’s no wonder that many people prefer the convenience of online shopping when going into stores can be a pretty dull experience.

“Times have changed (and continue to do so) and retailers need to recognise that people have lots of buying options, so the more fun and appealing they can make their stores, across all generations and genders, the more profitable they’re likely to be.”

“With so much to explore in their stores, it’s not surprising that IKEA was named by so many in Northern Ireland or that it’s so successful around the globe. We were a little surprised that it managed to knock popular brands like TK Maxx and Apple off the top spot though.”

Saturn Visual Solutions is a digital signage consultancy and works with retail businesses to help them make their in-store shopping experience more engaging and fun to increase profitability.