I take your point, some are in town but the ones up here (in the Midlands) they all have somewhere decent - and generally free - to park.
I was speaking to someone relatively senior in John Lewis recently and he explained why the one in the centre of Birmingham failed. The reasoning was that...
I don't consider getting IKEA delivered. That's because the last thing IKEA delivered was when my lad was potty training albeit he hadn't quite got it yet. The IKEA delivery had to mind the steaming turd in the hallway we hadn't spotted him doing before we opened the door.
Strange location for IKEA, it's normally out of town. Whilst I appreciate there is parking at Churchill Square, you have to re-mortgage the house for 2 hours to do so and you've then got to transport your Sven Goran Ericksen bookcase to the car from the shop.
Anyway, those cheap tea towels are...