Chinese Retail's Latest Rip-Off: Ikea

Why create knock-offs of specific items when you can knock off an entire brand? A warehouse store in China called 11 Furniture has adopted almost everything from Ikea—from staged rooms and minimalist furniture designs to tiny pencils and an in-store restaurant. It's part of a rapidly growing market in the country for stores that copy entire brands' shopping experience, reports Reuters.

"Customers have told me we look like Ikea," says an 11 Furniture customer service rep. " If two people are wearing the same clothes, you are bound to say that one copied the other." The phenomenon of pirating a whole brand first came to light last month when an American blogger uncovered fake Apple stores in China. " Typically there are a lot of fake products," says one retail analyst. "Now we see more fakes in the service aspect in terms of [faking] the retail formats." (More Ikea stories.)