IKEA brand caught in negative sentiments around Shanghai store lockdown

Videos of shoppers rushing for exits at an IKEA store in Shanghai on Saturday have gone viral, after the city’s health authorities required the store to lock down after a close contact of a covid-19 case was detected at the location.

Multiple videos on Twitter showed customers at the store screaming and pushing each other to escape the building before the doors shut while authorities put the store on lockdown and try to quarantine them inside.

https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1559207202929291264

According to social monitoring company CARMA, videos of shoppers rushing for the exits at the IKEA store were widely circulated on social media. The incident was also reported in major foreign media such as CNN, Bloomberg, and BBC. CARMA also saw a total of 51% negative mentions across print, online, and social media over the past four days.  

"Many netizens believed that people were more worried about being trapped in IKEA than catching covid. Some were concerned about the remaining shoppers who did not manage to escape before the flash lockdown. “ZeroCovid” was among one of the prominent keywords in related mentions," said Charles Cheung, general manager of CARMA. 

This comes as China implemented the zero-covid policy. Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the Shanghai Health Commission, said in a press briefing on 14 August 2022 that the "store and affected area" would be under "closed loop" management for two days. Customers inside the loop have to be quarantined for two days at a government facility and five days of health surveillance.

The IKEA store in Shanghai's Xuhui district was temporarily closed on Sunday and Monday in response to epidemic prevention guidelines from the authorities and will reopen on 16 August 2022, according to CNN.

As China's financial capital and comprises 25 million of population, Shanghai was locked down for two months earlier this year, leading to widespread public outrage as residents reported difficulties in gathering daily essentials including food and medicine. The lockdown was imposed under China's zero-Covid policy, which emphases on mass testing, extensive quarantines and even confinement of entire cities to stamp out any resurgence of the virus.

Related articles:

IKEA launches new store in Tsim Sha Tsui to promote sustainability
Why IKEA HK is selling display items and discontinued furniture on Carousell