Daily Times

There’s a department store in Sweden so enormous that it’s become the country’s most popular visitor attraction, welcoming an average of five million visitors each year.

The superstore – Gekas Ullared – attracts such vast numbers of visitors that it has built two hotels, a motel, several log cabin rentals and a camping ground nearby for overnight visits. At 40,400 sq m, it’s one of the world’s biggest department stores and the largest in Scandinavia – it’s comprised of 22 departments selling an estimated 100,000 products, from electronics to clothing.

The average customer travels 230km to get to the store, which is set in the town of Ullared in Halland County in the northeast of the country.

Known for its low prices, it often has massive queues on Saturdays during high season, with the queue once measuring 1.4km in length.

Acknowledging the store’s status as a tourist attraction, in 2016, store executive Jan Wallberg told Berliner Morgenpost: ‘Gekas Ullared is not just a department store. It’s a travel destination. You come here for the overall experience. People also go to Paris to shop, just like we do.’

Gekas Ullared’s history dates back to 1963 when founder Goran Karlsson opened the original shop on the ground floor of a house in the town. Initially, it focused on selling low-price cleaning coats for ladies and car coats for men, and when business boomed, the store expanded into the new, larger premises it occupies today. Known across the country, it was previously the subject of a docu-drama series named Ullared and King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden even paid it a visit in 2013 while touring Halland County.

The store’s website says: ‘Our business idea is to sell everything for the home that fits in a car at unbeatably low prices.’ There are 3,200 parking spaces in the superstore’s car park, there is room for around 100 vehicles in the caravan and motorhome parking lot and the bus parking lot has space for up to 45 buses. One of the hotels, Hotel Ulla, is a four-minute drive from the shopping centre, while the second, newer hotel – ‘Hotellet’ – is less than a five-minute walk away. With rooms splashed with accents of yellow from the superstore’s logo, Hotellet is described as a ‘cosy place to land after a day in the department store’. Prices for a double room start from £72 a night.

A cheaper alternative is the motel that’s even closer to the retail complex – a room for four is £56 a night. When visitors have had their fill of bargain hunting, there are attractions outside the main superstore to be enjoyed – there’s a padel court, a 950-sq-m kids’ playground, a minigolf course, a sauna experience with wood-burning hot tubs and even a ski slope in the winter months. Leaving a review for the department store on Tripadvisor, user ‘Laggeman’ described it as ‘shopping mecca’ while reviewer ‘Mrskrun’ said: ‘The store is extremely huge… the prices are unbelievable.’

Meanwhile, user ‘OrangeViking’ advised travellers: ‘Avoid last week of the month when pensions and wages have been paid out. Also avoid general holiday periods because it can get really crazy here.’