It's rather funny (funny: strange) to me that we live in a day and age when "the look of a store" is a recognizable thing. How did we manage to steer this ship into such strange waters?
Many businesses have done this intentionally, especially large chains like Walmart and Walgreens, to make it easy for shoppers to enter, find exactly what they're looking for, and complete a transaction quickly and with low friction, so that even when travelling, they are compelled to use them over alternatives.
Chain store branding has gotten a lot more consistent and, I dunno, "slick", I guess, since the 90s, excepting a few fast food places that have gone the opposite direction for some reason and toned their branding way down (Pizza Hut, McDonalds). At least in the US.
Like, in 1990 you could imagine a Wal-Mart moving into an old K-Mart's location and not tearing the building down and starting over, and probably not even doing a ton of façade work. Now? Only 3rd-tier sorts of chains go into storefronts without extensive renovation, at least, and the top-tier brands all seem to want to start with an empty slab. You only see the old style in rural small towns that haven't caught up yet (and maybe never will—perhaps there's no way to make a decent ROI on tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra branding in those places). Or, oddly, in places that have really strict building codes for commercial storefronts that forbid breaking from a certain style, so you tend to see the more muted branding in both very-well-off places, and very poor ones, though expressed differently.
It used to be fun to travel, even locally within the U.S., and see new stores and places you did not have back home. I never thought I would say this, but this Western world is becoming a downright boring place to live.
If they're all selling furniture why do they need to be any different? What's different between the requirements of a low-end furniture store like Ikea in New York and one in San Francisco that would mean there's any sense in running them differently?
You mean franchised. And while perhaps not the dictionary definition, in practice it is the literal definition of a franchise that every instance looks the same as every other one.
I don't thing franchises have to be so boring though, maybe a lot of people aren't old enough to remember... but McDonalds franchises, despite having mostly the same food, used to have the freedom to get a little weird with how the location looked.
The UK newsagent WH Smith’s established the look of their stores in 1852. If you have a chain shops with the same owner, it’s hard to imagine why each branch would use a different design.
Branding is a thing. Recognizable brands are the essence of trademark. This day and age is not new.