ONE month since IKEA opened its doors in Southampton, the Swedish furniture giant has revealed 335,000 people have visited the iconic store.

The best selling item has been the 97p RATTVIK red wine glass, with more than 15,000 sold to date. Other top sellers include the BASTIS lint roller, BILLY bookcase, with 1,200 sold, and the POANG chair selling over 1,000. Some 371,855 of the famous meatballs have also been sold over the past four weeks.

Southampton store manager Allesandra Taffe said: “The amount of visitors we have had since IKEA Southampton opened has been phenomenal. It has blown all of our expectations out of the water. I would like to say a big thank you once again for everyone’s patience during this opening period.”

IKEA bosses are still pressing the council to let them open their car park earlier. The company failed to get permission to open its 900-space car park earlier than the store, causing some early morning queues.

Ikea wants to vary a planning condition to open the car park at 9.30am, 30 minutes before the store opens between Monday and Friday, and one hour before the store opens on Saturday and Sunday, at 8am and 9am.