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I moved coasts and renovated an old house last year. And consequently I've spent a LOT of time on Ikea's website and at our local store. I'm stunned at how ter

I moved coasts and renovated an old house last year. And consequently I've spent a LOT of time on Ikea's website and at our local store. I'm stunned at how terrible their online experience is. The parent article summarizes a bunch. But Ikea misses out on basic blocking and tackling ecommerce items like product descriptions, dimensions, related products in the collection, inventory levels (not always accurate), etc. It makes me wonder how much money they're leaving on the table with that experience.

onion2k 7y ago
But Ikea misses out on basic blocking and tackling ecommerce items like product descriptions, dimensions, related products in the collection, inventory levels (not always accurate), etc. Ikea's site has all that product information and more for most of the products in the search listing - but you do have to hover over things to see it. What is quite interesting is the variation between the product pages between different countries. US - https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90394559/#/10394558 https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90394559/#/10394... Japan - https://www.ikea.com/jp/ja/catalog/products/40375134/ https://www.ikea.com/jp/ja/catalog/products/40375134/ UK - https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/songesand-wardrobe-white-90347351/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/songesand-wardrobe-white-903473... The Japanese site is much more 'rounded' than the US site, and the UK site has most of the information hidden away in an accordion UI. Presumably they've tested and found each variation works best in each region. I'd love to see their metrics.
- roystonvassey 7y ago
  For a multi-national operating entity, local customisation and even their entire website is often delegated to the local, legal entity itself. So, while some of this might be intentionally done, like you suggest, because of metrics, I suspect in most cases, the local development unit built their own product page, because they had to.
- kareemm 7y ago
  > Ikea's site has all that product information and more for most of the products in the search listing - but you do have to hover over things to see it. My issue is with completeness. Not every product has the basic information I'd need to decide whether to purchase it or not. Which means I don't purchase those products. Which means lost revenue for Ikea.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > Presumably they've tested and found each variation works best in each region. I'd love to see their metrics. Yeah, me too. Things like these make me think a lot of those metric-based decisions amount to reading tea leaves. I know there are differences between regions, but you wouldn't expect that many of them in the case of efficiently presenting information. Unless of course, efficiently presenting all necessary information to customers isn't what's being optimized for.
- Angostura 7y ago
  I wonder if the UK one is a later build and they've gone for a 'mobile first' type approach.
- codetrotter 7y ago
  On mobile all three of them look pretty much the same however, and at least for this product all three of them has information about dimensions easily accessible on mobile in an expanding section.
guitarbill 7y ago
oh, it gets worse. i made an account, bookmarked a few things. a few days later i try and order them. at the last step of checkout, an "unknown error occurred". as far as i know, that account is still unable to check out. how did i get around it? by logging out and not using an account/checkout as guest. (obviously, i would have preferred to not use them, but the missus wanted that one particular item.) but can you imagine having such a major, heavy bug at the last/crucial point of your funnel? the whole thing sucks, but then so does their home delivery, so i'm not sure how much money they make off their website vs in-store.
ssully 7y ago
I would assume they are leaving a decent chunk on the table. I've never bought something from Ikea online because of how terrible the experience is. I can think of two times when I found something close enough to what I wanted at a competitors store online because I didn't want to buy online at Ikea, and wasn't going to be close enough to one of their stores.

onion2k 7y ago

But Ikea misses out on basic blocking and tackling ecommerce items like product descriptions, dimensions, related products in the collection, inventory levels (not always accurate), etc. Ikea's site has all that product information and more for most of the products in the search listing - but you do have to hover over things to see it. What is quite interesting is the variation between the product pages between different countries. US - https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90394559/#/10394558 https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90394559/#/10394... Japan - https://www.ikea.com/jp/ja/catalog/products/40375134/ https://www.ikea.com/jp/ja/catalog/products/40375134/ UK - https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/songesand-wardrobe-white-90347351/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/songesand-wardrobe-white-903473... The Japanese site is much more 'rounded' than the US site, and the UK site has most of the information hidden away in an accordion UI. Presumably they've tested and found each variation works best in each region. I'd love to see their metrics.

roystonvassey 7y ago
For a multi-national operating entity, local customisation and even their entire website is often delegated to the local, legal entity itself. So, while some of this might be intentionally done, like you suggest, because of metrics, I suspect in most cases, the local development unit built their own product page, because they had to.
kareemm 7y ago
> Ikea's site has all that product information and more for most of the products in the search listing - but you do have to hover over things to see it. My issue is with completeness. Not every product has the basic information I'd need to decide whether to purchase it or not. Which means I don't purchase those products. Which means lost revenue for Ikea.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> Presumably they've tested and found each variation works best in each region. I'd love to see their metrics. Yeah, me too. Things like these make me think a lot of those metric-based decisions amount to reading tea leaves. I know there are differences between regions, but you wouldn't expect that many of them in the case of efficiently presenting information. Unless of course, efficiently presenting all necessary information to customers isn't what's being optimized for.
Angostura 7y ago
I wonder if the UK one is a later build and they've gone for a 'mobile first' type approach.
codetrotter 7y ago
On mobile all three of them look pretty much the same however, and at least for this product all three of them has information about dimensions easily accessible on mobile in an expanding section.

guitarbill 7y ago

oh, it gets worse. i made an account, bookmarked a few things. a few days later i try and order them. at the last step of checkout, an "unknown error occurred". as far as i know, that account is still unable to check out. how did i get around it? by logging out and not using an account/checkout as guest. (obviously, i would have preferred to not use them, but the missus wanted that one particular item.) but can you imagine having such a major, heavy bug at the last/crucial point of your funnel? the whole thing sucks, but then so does their home delivery, so i'm not sure how much money they make off their website vs in-store.

ssully 7y ago

I would assume they are leaving a decent chunk on the table. I've never bought something from Ikea online because of how terrible the experience is. I can think of two times when I found something close enough to what I wanted at a competitors store online because I didn't want to buy online at Ikea, and wasn't going to be close enough to one of their stores.