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IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run

376 points by RankingMember 6y ago

sxp 6y ago
I'm going to miss this catalog. I really enjoyed browsing through the catalog once I learned it was mostly CGI: http://web.archive.org/web/20170327144912/http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/building_3d_with_ikea http://web.archive.org/web/20170327144912/http://www.cgsocie...
steve918 6y ago
Somewhat unrelated IKEA has been brought to it's knees during the pandemic and it has made their online ordering completely useless. For a company shifting focus to online only I would think they would want to be able to ship some things purchased online. Stock is also low in the Portland store, but even the few items available can't be purchased online and shipped to me. I've tried to order a number of things recently and they won't ship anything to my house.
- Griffinsauce 6y ago
  Their support systems have also fully broken down here in the Netherlands. Phone is not available because their people are working from home (this is entirely a solvable problem...), there's no email and the chat channels are so overwhelmed that it takes a week for them to respond. This is not a great experience when you received nothing and your delivery is marked as "delivered a week ago" in a completely borked status page.
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  Personal anecdote, buz IKEA's online shopping has always suckes for me, even before 2020. - Shipping options disappear and reappear randomly when refreshing the shopping cart - some items just cannot be bought online for no clear reason (baking spatulas cannot, cooking spatulas can) - Several packages arrived completely smashed open, and returning them involved bringing them "back" to the nearest IKEA which wasn't particularly fun with 35kg of furniture and no car.
  - arkitaip 6y ago
    IKEA's online shopping even sucks in Sweden, with shipping being expensive or online ordering unavailable for many products. Honestly their rate if innovation kinda sucks outside their narrow field of expertise (huge furniture warehouses). Like, they have for decades been discussing offering small stores to sell everyday necessities to customers who can't or won't travel to their warehouses outside the cities, but nothing has come out of it.
    - brazzledazzle 6y ago
      On the US site I can’t even log in and view my orders. I have to paste in the order number. I also noticed my “IKEA family” login doesn’t work at the normal IKEA login page which makes me think it’s two distinct systems with some kind of federation. It’s bizarre and I can only imagine the legacy cruft and/or dysfunction that led to this. If this is how bad it looks from the outside I can only imagine what it’s like working there.
    - sethhochberg 6y ago
      It seems like something is maybe starting to happen with the small city store idea - in NYC, IKEA already has a pretty normal-sized store in a relatively industrial area of Brooklyn, but recently opened an experimental small-format store in Queens and has a really small-format store in Manhattan.
    - ferryman 6y ago
      They're headquartered in the Netherlands and it sucks here as well. Their operations are not optimised for a high volume of online orders and their website does a really poor job of handling that.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Also, don't make the mistake of trying to call for a return. IKEA US had a 3+ hour long wait for the phones.
  - universa1 6y ago
    the online shopping isn't the best, but then with the current lockdown in germany you can do click&collect and get your stuff in the parking garage... still kinda sad they still charge 10€ extra for that (instead of 15 during normal times), but then it worked flawlessly and the stuff was ready for pickup the next day. still limited to things available in the local ikea, you can not mix "online" available and local available stuff...
- szszrk 6y ago
  This is unfortunately true for my country as well. Online catalog is not on par with regular store availability. It's even weirded if you take into account that their delivery fees are very high. It's often cheaper to buy small amounts of IKEA goods from resellers that just go to IKEA and buy it for you, then ship with standard services. Does US stores also have the ability to pick items up from a warehouse next to their stores? Btw. how is this option also a paid one is beyond me. This is unfortunate as they have a really cool offer of smart devices (lights, remotes, battery powered blinds, etc), which by default are not online (can be connected with things like google now but it's limited to local physical gate device by default). It's hard to actually buy all of these in one place, you have to hunt.
  - MrGilbert 6y ago
    > Does US stores also have the ability to pick items up from a warehouse next to their stores? Btw. how is this option also a paid one is beyond me. That's because every IKEA store is it's own warehouse. Everything you can see is the stock. There is only a small part where you can store stuff. So, instead of you running around and picking stuff from the shelves, an employee has to do it. It's basically a "convenience fee", because it's more expensive for IKEA to collect it for you then you collecting it. I'm not here to judge, though...
    - szszrk 6y ago
      You are right that it is work that needs to be done and should be paid for, but some local companies offer transport plus assembly in the price of IKEA transport only. Also in Poland availability is different when I try to buy same thing online, check if it's present in local store, or order the same item to be picked up by myself from warehouse next to store. It's even weirder! Sometimes I order things that are "present in my local store" with transportation, but the actual transportation is made from a central warehouse in different part of the country. So IKEA's "availability" is clearly a concept very different from what client might think. > So, instead of you running around and picking stuff from the shelves, an employee has to do it. Here warehouses are usually buildings next to the actual store. So in either case employee has to pick it up from warehouse, but with "pick up from warehouse yourself" option they don't need to transport it to the store next by. I still have to pay for that extra. It's just weird.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  Maybe a large scale logistic issue ? just sayin, some bike store had empty shelves due to border restrictions. Maybe IKEA local store have long term inventory while the website relies on far away central warehouse that was locked ?
- justin66 6y ago
  Their online ordering was never any good. I hate to think it’s gotten worse.
  - rplnt 6y ago
    It wasn't the ordering that sucked, they had very limited capacity at the stores to actually prepare the goods, as well as limited (and expensive) shipping. E.g. limiting orders per day - you had to order at midnight.
    - brazzledazzle 6y ago
      It’s definitely both a trash online shopping experience as well as capacity issues. Considering there’s a pandemic I can’t blame them for the latter but the former deserves the criticism.
- madsohm 6y ago
  In Denmark it's even worse than sucky shipping. Here we pay to collect our purchased items ourselves. So it's the items price plus ~$6 to collect it.
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    IKEA's click and collect. It's my understanding that the extra fee pays for time not spent in IKEA's alley (click) and the preparation of your purchases (collect).
- vincentmarle 6y ago
  Besides the fact that the items that I needed weren’t in stock in the nearest 2 IKEA stores (which meant I had to drive 1.5 hrs to the 3rd one), the Click & Collect pickup itself was pretty seamless. Just park and scan the QR code and they bring the cart to your car.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  As many others have commented, IKEA's online ordering has always been bad and so has been their service, delivery fees are also quite high (in the UK at least). IMHO, their focus is the in-store experience and have an online offering because they feel they have to but they never wanted to develop it too much. Even their "click and collect" service is quite bad in my experience (but maybe that was that particular store): It's not well organised in-store, the collection area looks a mess, and the employees are uncaring.
- Zigurd 6y ago
  Last year I needed some bed linens. I like Ikea design, and I have some Ikea bed linens. My naive thought was that, surely, I could order bed linens online and have them delivered. No. No you can't. You just can't. That is astounding at a time when anyone with a free website whacked together in a no-code site-builder can drop in an e-commerce widget and have a first rate online shopping experience for customers, with a "cart," check-out, payment, etc. Even when I was willing to shop in person, Ikea's tech was a frustrating factor. You cannot tell if every component of a couch configuration you want is in stock. You can't put the stock on hold. All you get is a red/yellow/green indicator of how much stock a store has. Since a couch has several modules and each module has a separate stock item for base, back cushion, and seat cushion upholstery, the odds of getting everything in one trip approaches zero. I cannot think of anywhere else where a few tens of millions in tech development could more obviously build billions in enterprise value.
DoctorBonkus 6y ago
The article doesn't mention (or I didn't see it) how they will show their new products to the costumers. How will they tell us? The magasine was a big, bulky commercial that we happily subscribed to. It must've been the cheapest ad that a company has ever produced.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sverhagen 6y ago
  I remember in the Netherlands we were up in arms for ages about still getting "useless" phone books and yellow pages, despite putting the "no ads - no (free) magazines" stickers (which were popular when I lived there). When I moved to the US, thankfully no more phone books, but I felt very similar to the Ikea magazine: a waste of paper, a burden to the environment, and I don't understand why you think it would've been cheap? We shop at Ikea all the time (barring pandemics), I'd see new stuff _there_.
  - moooo99 6y ago
    Having a bulky catalogue where your customers happily subscribe to is certainly a cheaper form of advertising than trying to invade their internet experience with products that might interest them. Its by no means a good way to acquire new customers, but its/was certainly an effective and comparatively cheap method to make your customers returning customers. Nowadays, there are Smartphone apps, membership programs, extremely specific targeting options with online ads etc, all of those methods are certainly a lot cheaper than printing an delivering a bulky catalog. That is, if you do not care about the environmental aspects.
    - sverhagen 6y ago
      Wait, hang on, aren't we talking about door-to-door delivery? That's what I assumed it was. But sure, I probably gave them my address...
ngngngng 6y ago
I am genuinely upset about this. I have such fond memories of thumbing through endlessly as a teenager and dreaming of having my own spaces that were so wonderfully busy and eclectic. My wife and I were just at IKEA last week picking up a new bed for our growing toddler, I glanced at the catalogs as we passed and decided against picking one up. I hope I can still get my hands on a couple old copies to keep on my bookshelf. Edit: Just placed an order for the specific catalog year I have so many memories of reading. One of my sillier purchases, but it feels like a piece of personal history.
- m463 6y ago
  I think they're giving up the long game. maybe kids now are doing it online?
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I'd bet a few dollars that for kids this generation everything virtual/AR is baseline.
    - darcien 6y ago
      Oh, that actually sounds like a cool idea for an AR app. Imagine using AR to add furnitures to your current room with furniture from a virtual catalogue. That way, you can see how your room would look like instead of imagining it inside your head. And if IKEA were to do it, they can just add shopping feature so the customer could purchase the furniture after trying it out inside their own room. That totally sounds like a killer app! I wonder if there's anything like that already on the market.
      - robin_reala 6y ago
        Geomagical are doing that: https://geomagical.com/ https://geomagical.com/
      - Tomte 6y ago
        > Imagine using AR to add furnitures to your current room with furniture from a virtual catalogue. That way, you can see how your room would look like instead of imagining it inside your head. It exists. The IKEA Smart app (from IKEA itself).
durnygbur 6y ago
Their catalogues didn't contain a single photography. You watch CGI-porn with oversaturated colors and go to their place and purchase furnitures from cartboard and paper. It's as if McDonals was releasing paper catalogue with their menus.
- eru 6y ago
  You know that McDonald's has some interesting trick up their sleeves for their advertising pictures, too?
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Most restaurants do. I remember that whipped cream is usually replaced with shaving cream and everything is usually full of toothpicks to keep it together.
    - choward 6y ago
      Most of the stuff isn't edible and would kill you. Lots of glue.
    - athenot 6y ago
      I have a relative who was making these "food" items out of acrylic and resin in art school 20 years ago. She had made a lobster on a bed of ice cubes that looked so real (and was intended for high resolution photography). Another project involved some beverage being poured into a wine glass… it was actually constructed horizontally on a pane of transparent glass, with a half wine glass constructed over it. Truly amazing.
- rchaud 6y ago
  That's part of the fun, and the 'inspiration'. Of course you know that the items alone won't get you that IKEA look. And most people don't want that anyway. It's the whole package the catalog offered; room lighting, wall paint, window positions, curtain types and furniture placement. Being able to to look at this on a magazine-sized canvas (as opposed to a tiny mobile screen where everything is in neat grids) that causes our minds to run free with the possibilities.
DonHopkins 6y ago
Has anybody asked GPT-3 to come up with fictional Ikea product names? That would be hilarious!
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Just shuffle a Swedish dictionary.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
Good riddance, in my opinion. 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! And ten years ago, it was nearly 200. https://archive.is/rHAhG https://archive.is/rHAhG Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs? That's space, trees, plants, mammals, birds, insects, mushrooms, ... all being squeezed for a glossy catalog, most of which will get thumbed through once or twice and sent to the landfill to rot. These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they're not just paper. I love paper books, and I enjoyed browsing this catalog just like many others in this thread, and yet I don't think I will miss this one. Hopefully, other thick glossy catalogs will follow suit. Production of catalogs like this squeezes our biome, and if we don't turn back, it will pop, and we'll be left with only enough resources for a small fraction of us to survive.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  "The OPA man, Anderson Dawes, was sitting on a cloth folding chair outside Miller’s hole, reading a book. It was a real book—onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent." - Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Great quote, thanks for posting it. Books are not just decadent, they're also a reliable store of information which cannot be erased or altered easily without our knowledge. There's immense and irreplaceable value in paper books, and I've taken to collecting the best ones. I just don't think there's much value in this particular one.
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      Narp, I mean some will probably end up as collector's items in a hundred years, as a glance into 2021 design trends - 100 year old advertisements and catalogs are great collectibles and time capsules nowadays - but at the moment they're more of a nice to have for the next year or so. I do like leafing through things like that sometimes, but at the same time I don't mind going to the physical store for a browse. More useful.
crististm 6y ago
IKEA catalog is like the "I'm feeling lucky' google button. I guess we'll see soon what it means to get rid of it.
- ed312 6y ago
  Getting rid of that button (and feature) is the ultimate "we prioritized metrics-based design" over any human input or craft canary. We love old buildings because of an innate human craft and attention to detail. That button, to me, represents a digital form of that same emotion.
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Weirdly during the pandemic Ikea's shopping experience improved for me - we ordered the desk online from home, I got a text saying it woukd be ready, drove up, parked in large numbered bay in their car park, texted back which bay I was in and a employee trolleyed the whole lot over. I quite understand that they would prefer I bought lunch for my kids and ten impulse purchases but for me it was a surprising win. If they shipped a paper catalogue and stuck to that model I can imagine people really taking to it.
jennasys 6y ago
This just reminded me of the Horrorstör book I've had on my reading list for a while now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594745269 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594745269
implying 6y ago
If you're feeling nostalgic, Archive.org does a great job digitizing these, and they go back to 1950. https://archive.org/details/ikea-catalogs/Ikea-1950 https://archive.org/details/ikea-catalogs/Ikea-1950
rzzzt 6y ago
What am I going to read in the restroom, then?
Gaelan 6y ago
dang, doesn't seem like this adds much over the NPR story it links to: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943886033/emotional-but-rational-ikea-discontinues-its-long-running-catalog https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943886033/emotional-but-ratio... (By the way, does the keyword "dang" actually do anything to help summon you?)
- pgyc 6y ago
  Yes, its something we introduced a while back but we don't actively broadcast it to avoid abuse.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
treeman79 6y ago
Went through this at RadioShack back in 2000. Dropping the catalog was a huge negative. * online store made browsing a lot harder * employees used the catalog constantly to look up requested items. * we would turn away several people a day who came in asking for catalog. * customers loved browsing the catalog * lots of older customers that weren’t ready to transition. Part of it was that “kiosk” were crap. So employees had a harder time looking items up.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  And, that catalog also served as inspiration.
- tzs 6y ago
  Speaking of RadioShack, here's a site [1] that has scans of the catalogs from 1939-2011, include the retail catalogs, the industrial catalogs, and the specialized catalogs. [1] https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.htm https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.htm
russellbeattie 6y ago
I just got (and am currently typing this on) a Samsung S7+ tablet. It's massive and has taken me a while to get used to, but if we truly want to get rid of paper, this is the size e-readers and tablets need to be. Since this thing is basically a giant, relatively delicate pane of glass and metal and not even remotely cheap, I think it'll be a while yet.
- rchaud 6y ago
  As someone who's been attempting to read print magazines in digitized from since the iPad came out, I've come to realize that it's not about screen size, but convenience and disposability. Convenience because I can stuff it in a bag or leave it on a coffee table, and not worry about its physical condition. Convenience also because I can flip to any page and start reading from there. On a tablet I'd need to use the horizontal scrollbar to fast forward through pages and it doesn't feel the same. Reading a magazine on something that weighs over a pound is not comfortable. I never felt like I was kicking back and chilling with a magazine, just that I was holding a heavy, expensive piece of glass to read something I could have bought on the newsstand for 7 bucks.
taffronaut 6y ago
Using the IKEA and Argos (RIP 2020) catalogues, my mum was still able to browse for furniture and household stuff independently at the age of 92. She doesn't have broadband or any digital device; she's also deaf and doesn't have much manual dexterity. It now adds shopping to the long list of interactions such as public services, banking, healthcare, that she now has to do by proxy. Print, post (and even payphones) provided universal access to services for her generation where a one-off transaction cost pennies and required no contract, no device, not even a bank account (via postal order).
wayanon 6y ago
If the stories are true about Apple AR glasses I’d weirdly enjoy a virtual stroll around IKEA from home.
rbobby 6y ago
If they charged for it I wonder how many people would subscribe?
- choward 6y ago
  Paying just for ads? No thanks.
dirtyid 6y ago
Wanted to collected IKEA catalogs until I realized they vary by region due to item availability. Still they're fun reads, I wish they compiled a big annual PDF of all IKEA products. Would subscribe. Someone commented below pandemic online shopping has crippled IKEA, but I hope they get things sorted and eventually figure out logistics of shipping items between region. Lot's of interesting accessories like Asian cleavers and and woks in Asia market. I know you can get those from any brand, but I like my 365+ collection. Also update some of the garbage planning tools, a few of them still use flash early this year.
ToFab123 6y ago
That catalog was cycling around all internet design bureaus in Denmark (Sweden and Norway too) for years around year 2000. IKEA carpet bombed everyone with the task on how to put that catalog online. No matter where you applied for a job they all said they were working on the IKEA catalog. I have spend countless hours in various workshops with that catalog. Happy to learn that the mission finally has been completed and happy for all the trees this will save.
- konschubert 6y ago
  I don't think people will browse the catalog online like they did it with the book. When another app is just a flick away, people will jump off much more quickly than with a book. I know I will.
  - ToFab123 6y ago
    I don't know what it ended up becoming as I have not used IKEA online since long time, but I remember that the mantra back then was, that they wanted the assembling manual put online (how to put your IKEA furniture together). Back then, 20 some years ago, it was their key mission to provide an easy help with putting the furniture together. They did realize very early on that an online catalogue must be more that just a page with pretty pictures. They wanted to create a universe for each individual product and make it very easy for you to figure out how to put the furniture together. I remember dedicated workshops where we talked about Virtual Reality Headsets, 20 years ago as a tool to help people assembly the IKEA product. Their wet dream was that you pick up a box at your local IKEA store, put on your headset and then you will be guided for dummies through the assembly process. This is 20 years ago. Today, every time I hear about Microsoft HoloLens I think about these IKEA workshops. The mission for Microsoft HoloLens and the IKEA catalogue is in total alignment. Everything Microsoft wants to do with their headset, IKEA wanted to do with the catalogue 20 years ago. I am confident that there is an Microsoft HoloLens/IKEA working group out there somewhere prototyping this exact thing. Microsoft HoloLens and IKEA catalogue is a very cool combination.
    - rchaud 6y ago
timwaagh 6y ago
I don't know everything but it seems IKEA has become less relevant recently. Other stores often offer more options at a more affordable pricetag. Like you can't get a bed in other than standard sizes but Dutch people (and likely Swedes as well) have become so tall that isn't always practical. So instead I bought multiple beds at a local online only shop. They weren't much more expensive.
- agloeregrets 6y ago
  Ooh, this is what I found wrong with their sofas! I don’t get it, I’m around 6ft tall and their sofas are way too low.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
I'm certainly in favor of mitigating damage to Mother Nature. But this particular issue isn't that simple. Unfortunately, there are other nefarious force that should also be considered. Will we be able to browse the new catalogue without every scroll and click being tracked? For eternity? Trees are renewable. Privacy? Much less so.
kwhitefoot 6y ago
What am I going to use to light the fire with now?
Ovah 6y ago
In the early 2000s Sweden it was not uncommon to have a 'No advertising thank you, except for the IKEA catalog' sticker on your mailbox.
- samsari 6y ago
  Still is.
- rags2riches 6y ago
  Examples: https://lindawestermark.blogg.se/2009/august/ikea-katalogen.html https://lindawestermark.blogg.se/2009/august/ikea-katalogen.... https://sweden.kcomposite.com/ingen-reklam-tack/ https://sweden.kcomposite.com/ingen-reklam-tack/
switch007 6y ago
It seems to me like companies start/speed-up 'green' initiatives in a recession. If memory isn't failing me, around 2008 and thereafter hotels started nagging us about water usage, urging us to reuse towels, skip cleaning etc.
tamaharbor 6y ago
I haven’t been this upset since Radio Shack discontinued its yearly catalog.
kryptiskt 6y ago
The IKEA museum has all the (Swedish) catalogues archived here: https://ikeamuseum.com/sv/ikea-kataloger/ https://ikeamuseum.com/sv/ikea-kataloger/
bluedino 6y ago
I'm surprised at the amount of companies that still publish a substantial catalog in 2021. OWC/MacSales.com sends me one! I haven't bought any parts from them in years. At least the aftermarket car parts places stop sending you one after a few months of not buying anything.
- eppp 6y ago
  You lose something when you dont have a catalog. I havent ever seen a website that was good at showing you options. Sure I can find whatever I am looking for specifically but I cant find things that I dont even know exist and might work better unless I happen to see someone write about it.
IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
A lot of of folks dont realize this, but there is a direct link between the fall of the catalog, the ascendancy of amazon, and the demise of sears. Back in the day, the Sears catalog was the behemoth for 3rd party merchant sales, backed by Sears. You could get vendor credit, fulfillment etc, all with sears. Virtually every service you get today with Amazon (FBA, ads), you could get with sears, on their catalog. This is why the catalog was such a big deal. It was the 20th century platform. And its dead now
mcv 6y ago
Ages ago I heard that the IKEA catalog was the second most printed book in the world, after the Bible. Considering it was reprinted every year, often ignored or thrown away, and completely superceded by websites, it's probably about time it was discontinued. Yes, I also have childhood memories of reading through that thing, but these days if I want something from IKEA, their website is the first and only stop. Let's save these trees.
- paxys 6y ago
  Not sure you can call it a reprint if the content inside is completely different. If that was the case then a popular weekly magazine would anyways have way more total prints.
- acomjean 6y ago
  Reminds me of printed phone books. Every unit in my 35 unit building would get a new one every year. They'd sit in a pile (how many phone books do you need). For a couple years they'd stack this years phone book on last years phone book. Now not needed.
  - rement 6y ago
    Reminds me of when I was in elementary school and we would have "phone book" drives. The class that collected the most phone books to be recycled would get some kind of prize. I remember walking around my neighborhood with a wagon collecting phone books. Good times.
Gravityloss 6y ago
I find paper catalogues really impractical because it's slow to flip the pages and search is also slower (often you have to go the directory at the end). Ikea's web page is okay, better than the competition. Availability is a problem for Ikea currently - but at least they have a lot of volume and a really ruthlessly culled assortment. So usually they're a lot better than the competition. Almost everything is available for taking with you when you're at the store. I bet if you're doing design work for Ikea, it goes through a lot of checking before it will be produced. Their personnel is absolutely great, I have really good experience of that.
rchaud 6y ago
I'm honestly sad to hear this. The catalog had great style, and the layouts and framing were gorgeous. For those who haven't seen it, rest assured it was not a boring sales catalogue with tiny product images jammed into every page. It was something you could put down and pick up every once in a while, and have new decor ideas. It had a curated feel, which is another example of the human touch that will disappear with algorithm-generated "inspo" layouts on Pinterest, or affiliate link heavy blog posts from Apartment Therapy. At least they plan on keeping an archive and having a compendium available for purchase. I hope that doesn't turn out to be vaporware.
- Spivak 6y ago
  Yeah, I hope they at least keep the content alive since they put a lot of effort into keeping up with interior decorating trends. I would absolutely subscribe to a magazine assembled by their group of editors.
- gnopgnip 6y ago
  Hopefully the people that created this before can create a digital first solution. Ikea notably was using 100% renders for the products in the catalog, they could make that process interactive
eplanit 6y ago
Can we beg ULine to do the same? Order one item and you'll be getting their wasted paper bricks every few weeks.
SEJeff 6y ago
This is kind of sad actually. IKEA made one of the best Apple trolls (literally) of all time with their "book book": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0 They made it as a parody in the style of an iPhone reveal presentation from Steve Jobs.
minikites 6y ago
Hacker News' priorities in a nutshell: Archaic furniture catalog halts printing: "How sad! What a loss to our culture!" Technology displaces millions of jobs, leaving real people destitute and without medical care: "That's just the free market, suck it up, rube!"
wrongdonf 6y ago
I love ikea. In the 90s and naughts it was a symbol of progress and its products complemented the sheik style that was so popular at the time. And it was commonly said to be cheap, and contributed to a new style of ephemeral living that was the precursor to modern tech nomadism and living by wire so to speak. Fresh euro-style industrialized in American fashion. But recently IKEA hasn’t seemed very cheap to me. And the throwing away of the olde ways has now progressed to a point where AGI can no longer be written off completely and with that comes the feeling that we may soon have thrown away too much.
underseacables 6y ago
The IKEA book book! https://youtu.be/MOXQo7nURs0 https://youtu.be/MOXQo7nURs0
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
Ahh, IKEA, where people buy their furniture for the Arch Linux effect.
99_00 6y ago
The article doesn't say why IKEA is ending the catalog. This is the closest they come: >Times change, however, and global companies hoping to stay relevant have little choice but to change with them. To that end, IKEA has announced that its catalog’s glorious run will come to an end, a decision the company arrived at within the past few months.
hedora 6y ago
I’ll miss the digital version of the catalog. It sounds like that’s discontinued too. I kind of wonder if Ikea is going to survive covid. Their web page says everything I want is chronically out of stock. I don’t see why they can’t pivot to touchless pickup or delivery. Instead, I’ve been buying furniture online from more than one of their competitors. The experience and quality control are worse than an in-store Ikea run, but the selection is better. It’s a step sideways, I suppose.
- kevincox 6y ago
  IKEA has delivery, at least to Toronto. However it is very expensive and most things were out of stock for a long time or restricted for in-store only (although it seems that a lot is back in stock now).
rumblestrut 6y ago
Sad to hear this. As a shopper of IKEA, I am not a fan of their apps or online versions for shopping. I find flipping through a catalog a much better experience.
ghostly_s 6y ago
I hope this means they're pouring serious resources into revamping their website, then. Recently did an order for delivery and it was endlessly frustrating.
crb002 6y ago
They could have charged a fee high enough to plant two trees for every one that went into the catalog. Sears died when the catalog did - but with IKEA I have never seen the catalog so maybe it is waste.

376 points by RankingMember 6y ago

sxp 6y ago

I'm going to miss this catalog. I really enjoyed browsing through the catalog once I learned it was mostly CGI: http://web.archive.org/web/20170327144912/http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/building_3d_with_ikea http://web.archive.org/web/20170327144912/http://www.cgsocie...

steve918 6y ago

Somewhat unrelated IKEA has been brought to it's knees during the pandemic and it has made their online ordering completely useless. For a company shifting focus to online only I would think they would want to be able to ship some things purchased online. Stock is also low in the Portland store, but even the few items available can't be purchased online and shipped to me. I've tried to order a number of things recently and they won't ship anything to my house.

Griffinsauce 6y ago
Their support systems have also fully broken down here in the Netherlands. Phone is not available because their people are working from home (this is entirely a solvable problem...), there's no email and the chat channels are so overwhelmed that it takes a week for them to respond. This is not a great experience when you received nothing and your delivery is marked as "delivered a week ago" in a completely borked status page.
ThePadawan 6y ago
Personal anecdote, buz IKEA's online shopping has always suckes for me, even before 2020. - Shipping options disappear and reappear randomly when refreshing the shopping cart - some items just cannot be bought online for no clear reason (baking spatulas cannot, cooking spatulas can) - Several packages arrived completely smashed open, and returning them involved bringing them "back" to the nearest IKEA which wasn't particularly fun with 35kg of furniture and no car.
- arkitaip 6y ago
  IKEA's online shopping even sucks in Sweden, with shipping being expensive or online ordering unavailable for many products. Honestly their rate if innovation kinda sucks outside their narrow field of expertise (huge furniture warehouses). Like, they have for decades been discussing offering small stores to sell everyday necessities to customers who can't or won't travel to their warehouses outside the cities, but nothing has come out of it.
  - brazzledazzle 6y ago
    On the US site I can’t even log in and view my orders. I have to paste in the order number. I also noticed my “IKEA family” login doesn’t work at the normal IKEA login page which makes me think it’s two distinct systems with some kind of federation. It’s bizarre and I can only imagine the legacy cruft and/or dysfunction that led to this. If this is how bad it looks from the outside I can only imagine what it’s like working there.
  - sethhochberg 6y ago
    It seems like something is maybe starting to happen with the small city store idea - in NYC, IKEA already has a pretty normal-sized store in a relatively industrial area of Brooklyn, but recently opened an experimental small-format store in Queens and has a really small-format store in Manhattan.
  - ferryman 6y ago
    They're headquartered in the Netherlands and it sucks here as well. Their operations are not optimised for a high volume of online orders and their website does a really poor job of handling that.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Also, don't make the mistake of trying to call for a return. IKEA US had a 3+ hour long wait for the phones.
- universa1 6y ago
  the online shopping isn't the best, but then with the current lockdown in germany you can do click&collect and get your stuff in the parking garage... still kinda sad they still charge 10€ extra for that (instead of 15 during normal times), but then it worked flawlessly and the stuff was ready for pickup the next day. still limited to things available in the local ikea, you can not mix "online" available and local available stuff...
szszrk 6y ago
This is unfortunately true for my country as well. Online catalog is not on par with regular store availability. It's even weirded if you take into account that their delivery fees are very high. It's often cheaper to buy small amounts of IKEA goods from resellers that just go to IKEA and buy it for you, then ship with standard services. Does US stores also have the ability to pick items up from a warehouse next to their stores? Btw. how is this option also a paid one is beyond me. This is unfortunate as they have a really cool offer of smart devices (lights, remotes, battery powered blinds, etc), which by default are not online (can be connected with things like google now but it's limited to local physical gate device by default). It's hard to actually buy all of these in one place, you have to hunt.
- MrGilbert 6y ago
  > Does US stores also have the ability to pick items up from a warehouse next to their stores? Btw. how is this option also a paid one is beyond me. That's because every IKEA store is it's own warehouse. Everything you can see is the stock. There is only a small part where you can store stuff. So, instead of you running around and picking stuff from the shelves, an employee has to do it. It's basically a "convenience fee", because it's more expensive for IKEA to collect it for you then you collecting it. I'm not here to judge, though...
  - szszrk 6y ago
    You are right that it is work that needs to be done and should be paid for, but some local companies offer transport plus assembly in the price of IKEA transport only. Also in Poland availability is different when I try to buy same thing online, check if it's present in local store, or order the same item to be picked up by myself from warehouse next to store. It's even weirder! Sometimes I order things that are "present in my local store" with transportation, but the actual transportation is made from a central warehouse in different part of the country. So IKEA's "availability" is clearly a concept very different from what client might think. > So, instead of you running around and picking stuff from the shelves, an employee has to do it. Here warehouses are usually buildings next to the actual store. So in either case employee has to pick it up from warehouse, but with "pick up from warehouse yourself" option they don't need to transport it to the store next by. I still have to pay for that extra. It's just weird.
agumonkey 6y ago
Maybe a large scale logistic issue ? just sayin, some bike store had empty shelves due to border restrictions. Maybe IKEA local store have long term inventory while the website relies on far away central warehouse that was locked ?
justin66 6y ago
Their online ordering was never any good. I hate to think it’s gotten worse.
- rplnt 6y ago
  It wasn't the ordering that sucked, they had very limited capacity at the stores to actually prepare the goods, as well as limited (and expensive) shipping. E.g. limiting orders per day - you had to order at midnight.
  - brazzledazzle 6y ago
    It’s definitely both a trash online shopping experience as well as capacity issues. Considering there’s a pandemic I can’t blame them for the latter but the former deserves the criticism.
madsohm 6y ago
In Denmark it's even worse than sucky shipping. Here we pay to collect our purchased items ourselves. So it's the items price plus ~$6 to collect it.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  IKEA's click and collect. It's my understanding that the extra fee pays for time not spent in IKEA's alley (click) and the preparation of your purchases (collect).
vincentmarle 6y ago
Besides the fact that the items that I needed weren’t in stock in the nearest 2 IKEA stores (which meant I had to drive 1.5 hrs to the 3rd one), the Click & Collect pickup itself was pretty seamless. Just park and scan the QR code and they bring the cart to your car.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
As many others have commented, IKEA's online ordering has always been bad and so has been their service, delivery fees are also quite high (in the UK at least). IMHO, their focus is the in-store experience and have an online offering because they feel they have to but they never wanted to develop it too much. Even their "click and collect" service is quite bad in my experience (but maybe that was that particular store): It's not well organised in-store, the collection area looks a mess, and the employees are uncaring.
Zigurd 6y ago
Last year I needed some bed linens. I like Ikea design, and I have some Ikea bed linens. My naive thought was that, surely, I could order bed linens online and have them delivered. No. No you can't. You just can't. That is astounding at a time when anyone with a free website whacked together in a no-code site-builder can drop in an e-commerce widget and have a first rate online shopping experience for customers, with a "cart," check-out, payment, etc. Even when I was willing to shop in person, Ikea's tech was a frustrating factor. You cannot tell if every component of a couch configuration you want is in stock. You can't put the stock on hold. All you get is a red/yellow/green indicator of how much stock a store has. Since a couch has several modules and each module has a separate stock item for base, back cushion, and seat cushion upholstery, the odds of getting everything in one trip approaches zero. I cannot think of anywhere else where a few tens of millions in tech development could more obviously build billions in enterprise value.

DoctorBonkus 6y ago

The article doesn't mention (or I didn't see it) how they will show their new products to the costumers. How will they tell us? The magasine was a big, bulky commercial that we happily subscribed to. It must've been the cheapest ad that a company has ever produced.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sverhagen 6y ago
I remember in the Netherlands we were up in arms for ages about still getting "useless" phone books and yellow pages, despite putting the "no ads - no (free) magazines" stickers (which were popular when I lived there). When I moved to the US, thankfully no more phone books, but I felt very similar to the Ikea magazine: a waste of paper, a burden to the environment, and I don't understand why you think it would've been cheap? We shop at Ikea all the time (barring pandemics), I'd see new stuff _there_.
- moooo99 6y ago
  Having a bulky catalogue where your customers happily subscribe to is certainly a cheaper form of advertising than trying to invade their internet experience with products that might interest them. Its by no means a good way to acquire new customers, but its/was certainly an effective and comparatively cheap method to make your customers returning customers. Nowadays, there are Smartphone apps, membership programs, extremely specific targeting options with online ads etc, all of those methods are certainly a lot cheaper than printing an delivering a bulky catalog. That is, if you do not care about the environmental aspects.
  - sverhagen 6y ago
    Wait, hang on, aren't we talking about door-to-door delivery? That's what I assumed it was. But sure, I probably gave them my address...

ngngngng 6y ago

I am genuinely upset about this. I have such fond memories of thumbing through endlessly as a teenager and dreaming of having my own spaces that were so wonderfully busy and eclectic. My wife and I were just at IKEA last week picking up a new bed for our growing toddler, I glanced at the catalogs as we passed and decided against picking one up. I hope I can still get my hands on a couple old copies to keep on my bookshelf. Edit: Just placed an order for the specific catalog year I have so many memories of reading. One of my sillier purchases, but it feels like a piece of personal history.

m463 6y ago
I think they're giving up the long game. maybe kids now are doing it online?
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I'd bet a few dollars that for kids this generation everything virtual/AR is baseline.
  - darcien 6y ago
    Oh, that actually sounds like a cool idea for an AR app. Imagine using AR to add furnitures to your current room with furniture from a virtual catalogue. That way, you can see how your room would look like instead of imagining it inside your head. And if IKEA were to do it, they can just add shopping feature so the customer could purchase the furniture after trying it out inside their own room. That totally sounds like a killer app! I wonder if there's anything like that already on the market.
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      Geomagical are doing that: https://geomagical.com/ https://geomagical.com/
    - Tomte 6y ago
      > Imagine using AR to add furnitures to your current room with furniture from a virtual catalogue. That way, you can see how your room would look like instead of imagining it inside your head. It exists. The IKEA Smart app (from IKEA itself).

durnygbur 6y ago

Their catalogues didn't contain a single photography. You watch CGI-porn with oversaturated colors and go to their place and purchase furnitures from cartboard and paper. It's as if McDonals was releasing paper catalogue with their menus.

eru 6y ago
You know that McDonald's has some interesting trick up their sleeves for their advertising pictures, too?
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Most restaurants do. I remember that whipped cream is usually replaced with shaving cream and everything is usually full of toothpicks to keep it together.
  - choward 6y ago
    Most of the stuff isn't edible and would kill you. Lots of glue.
  - athenot 6y ago
    I have a relative who was making these "food" items out of acrylic and resin in art school 20 years ago. She had made a lobster on a bed of ice cubes that looked so real (and was intended for high resolution photography). Another project involved some beverage being poured into a wine glass… it was actually constructed horizontally on a pane of transparent glass, with a half wine glass constructed over it. Truly amazing.
rchaud 6y ago
That's part of the fun, and the 'inspiration'. Of course you know that the items alone won't get you that IKEA look. And most people don't want that anyway. It's the whole package the catalog offered; room lighting, wall paint, window positions, curtain types and furniture placement. Being able to to look at this on a magazine-sized canvas (as opposed to a tiny mobile screen where everything is in neat grids) that causes our minds to run free with the possibilities.

DonHopkins 6y ago

Has anybody asked GPT-3 to come up with fictional Ikea product names? That would be hilarious!

Hamuko 6y ago
Just shuffle a Swedish dictionary.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

Good riddance, in my opinion. 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! And ten years ago, it was nearly 200. https://archive.is/rHAhG https://archive.is/rHAhG Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs? That's space, trees, plants, mammals, birds, insects, mushrooms, ... all being squeezed for a glossy catalog, most of which will get thumbed through once or twice and sent to the landfill to rot. These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they're not just paper. I love paper books, and I enjoyed browsing this catalog just like many others in this thread, and yet I don't think I will miss this one. Hopefully, other thick glossy catalogs will follow suit. Production of catalogs like this squeezes our biome, and if we don't turn back, it will pop, and we'll be left with only enough resources for a small fraction of us to survive.

ngngngng 6y ago
"The OPA man, Anderson Dawes, was sitting on a cloth folding chair outside Miller’s hole, reading a book. It was a real book—onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent." - Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Great quote, thanks for posting it. Books are not just decadent, they're also a reliable store of information which cannot be erased or altered easily without our knowledge. There's immense and irreplaceable value in paper books, and I've taken to collecting the best ones. I just don't think there's much value in this particular one.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Narp, I mean some will probably end up as collector's items in a hundred years, as a glance into 2021 design trends - 100 year old advertisements and catalogs are great collectibles and time capsules nowadays - but at the moment they're more of a nice to have for the next year or so. I do like leafing through things like that sometimes, but at the same time I don't mind going to the physical store for a browse. More useful.

crististm 6y ago

IKEA catalog is like the "I'm feeling lucky' google button. I guess we'll see soon what it means to get rid of it.

ed312 6y ago
Getting rid of that button (and feature) is the ultimate "we prioritized metrics-based design" over any human input or craft canary. We love old buildings because of an innate human craft and attention to detail. That button, to me, represents a digital form of that same emotion.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Weirdly during the pandemic Ikea's shopping experience improved for me - we ordered the desk online from home, I got a text saying it woukd be ready, drove up, parked in large numbered bay in their car park, texted back which bay I was in and a employee trolleyed the whole lot over. I quite understand that they would prefer I bought lunch for my kids and ten impulse purchases but for me it was a surprising win. If they shipped a paper catalogue and stuck to that model I can imagine people really taking to it.

jennasys 6y ago

This just reminded me of the Horrorstör book I've had on my reading list for a while now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594745269 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594745269

implying 6y ago

If you're feeling nostalgic, Archive.org does a great job digitizing these, and they go back to 1950. https://archive.org/details/ikea-catalogs/Ikea-1950 https://archive.org/details/ikea-catalogs/Ikea-1950

rzzzt 6y ago

What am I going to read in the restroom, then?

Gaelan 6y ago

dang, doesn't seem like this adds much over the NPR story it links to: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943886033/emotional-but-rational-ikea-discontinues-its-long-running-catalog https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943886033/emotional-but-ratio... (By the way, does the keyword "dang" actually do anything to help summon you?)

pgyc 6y ago
Yes, its something we introduced a while back but we don't actively broadcast it to avoid abuse.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

treeman79 6y ago

Went through this at RadioShack back in 2000. Dropping the catalog was a huge negative. * online store made browsing a lot harder * employees used the catalog constantly to look up requested items. * we would turn away several people a day who came in asking for catalog. * customers loved browsing the catalog * lots of older customers that weren’t ready to transition. Part of it was that “kiosk” were crap. So employees had a harder time looking items up.

jacquesm 6y ago
And, that catalog also served as inspiration.
tzs 6y ago
Speaking of RadioShack, here's a site [1] that has scans of the catalogs from 1939-2011, include the retail catalogs, the industrial catalogs, and the specialized catalogs. [1] https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.htm https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.htm

russellbeattie 6y ago

I just got (and am currently typing this on) a Samsung S7+ tablet. It's massive and has taken me a while to get used to, but if we truly want to get rid of paper, this is the size e-readers and tablets need to be. Since this thing is basically a giant, relatively delicate pane of glass and metal and not even remotely cheap, I think it'll be a while yet.

rchaud 6y ago
As someone who's been attempting to read print magazines in digitized from since the iPad came out, I've come to realize that it's not about screen size, but convenience and disposability. Convenience because I can stuff it in a bag or leave it on a coffee table, and not worry about its physical condition. Convenience also because I can flip to any page and start reading from there. On a tablet I'd need to use the horizontal scrollbar to fast forward through pages and it doesn't feel the same. Reading a magazine on something that weighs over a pound is not comfortable. I never felt like I was kicking back and chilling with a magazine, just that I was holding a heavy, expensive piece of glass to read something I could have bought on the newsstand for 7 bucks.

taffronaut 6y ago

Using the IKEA and Argos (RIP 2020) catalogues, my mum was still able to browse for furniture and household stuff independently at the age of 92. She doesn't have broadband or any digital device; she's also deaf and doesn't have much manual dexterity. It now adds shopping to the long list of interactions such as public services, banking, healthcare, that she now has to do by proxy. Print, post (and even payphones) provided universal access to services for her generation where a one-off transaction cost pennies and required no contract, no device, not even a bank account (via postal order).

wayanon 6y ago

If the stories are true about Apple AR glasses I’d weirdly enjoy a virtual stroll around IKEA from home.

rbobby 6y ago

If they charged for it I wonder how many people would subscribe?

choward 6y ago
Paying just for ads? No thanks.

dirtyid 6y ago

Wanted to collected IKEA catalogs until I realized they vary by region due to item availability. Still they're fun reads, I wish they compiled a big annual PDF of all IKEA products. Would subscribe. Someone commented below pandemic online shopping has crippled IKEA, but I hope they get things sorted and eventually figure out logistics of shipping items between region. Lot's of interesting accessories like Asian cleavers and and woks in Asia market. I know you can get those from any brand, but I like my 365+ collection. Also update some of the garbage planning tools, a few of them still use flash early this year.

ToFab123 6y ago

That catalog was cycling around all internet design bureaus in Denmark (Sweden and Norway too) for years around year 2000. IKEA carpet bombed everyone with the task on how to put that catalog online. No matter where you applied for a job they all said they were working on the IKEA catalog. I have spend countless hours in various workshops with that catalog. Happy to learn that the mission finally has been completed and happy for all the trees this will save.

konschubert 6y ago
I don't think people will browse the catalog online like they did it with the book. When another app is just a flick away, people will jump off much more quickly than with a book. I know I will.
- ToFab123 6y ago
  I don't know what it ended up becoming as I have not used IKEA online since long time, but I remember that the mantra back then was, that they wanted the assembling manual put online (how to put your IKEA furniture together). Back then, 20 some years ago, it was their key mission to provide an easy help with putting the furniture together. They did realize very early on that an online catalogue must be more that just a page with pretty pictures. They wanted to create a universe for each individual product and make it very easy for you to figure out how to put the furniture together. I remember dedicated workshops where we talked about Virtual Reality Headsets, 20 years ago as a tool to help people assembly the IKEA product. Their wet dream was that you pick up a box at your local IKEA store, put on your headset and then you will be guided for dummies through the assembly process. This is 20 years ago. Today, every time I hear about Microsoft HoloLens I think about these IKEA workshops. The mission for Microsoft HoloLens and the IKEA catalogue is in total alignment. Everything Microsoft wants to do with their headset, IKEA wanted to do with the catalogue 20 years ago. I am confident that there is an Microsoft HoloLens/IKEA working group out there somewhere prototyping this exact thing. Microsoft HoloLens and IKEA catalogue is a very cool combination.
  - rchaud 6y ago

timwaagh 6y ago

I don't know everything but it seems IKEA has become less relevant recently. Other stores often offer more options at a more affordable pricetag. Like you can't get a bed in other than standard sizes but Dutch people (and likely Swedes as well) have become so tall that isn't always practical. So instead I bought multiple beds at a local online only shop. They weren't much more expensive.

agloeregrets 6y ago
Ooh, this is what I found wrong with their sofas! I don’t get it, I’m around 6ft tall and their sofas are way too low.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

I'm certainly in favor of mitigating damage to Mother Nature. But this particular issue isn't that simple. Unfortunately, there are other nefarious force that should also be considered. Will we be able to browse the new catalogue without every scroll and click being tracked? For eternity? Trees are renewable. Privacy? Much less so.

kwhitefoot 6y ago

What am I going to use to light the fire with now?

Ovah 6y ago

In the early 2000s Sweden it was not uncommon to have a 'No advertising thank you, except for the IKEA catalog' sticker on your mailbox.

samsari 6y ago
Still is.
rags2riches 6y ago
Examples: https://lindawestermark.blogg.se/2009/august/ikea-katalogen.html https://lindawestermark.blogg.se/2009/august/ikea-katalogen.... https://sweden.kcomposite.com/ingen-reklam-tack/ https://sweden.kcomposite.com/ingen-reklam-tack/

switch007 6y ago

It seems to me like companies start/speed-up 'green' initiatives in a recession. If memory isn't failing me, around 2008 and thereafter hotels started nagging us about water usage, urging us to reuse towels, skip cleaning etc.

tamaharbor 6y ago

I haven’t been this upset since Radio Shack discontinued its yearly catalog.

kryptiskt 6y ago

The IKEA museum has all the (Swedish) catalogues archived here: https://ikeamuseum.com/sv/ikea-kataloger/ https://ikeamuseum.com/sv/ikea-kataloger/

bluedino 6y ago

I'm surprised at the amount of companies that still publish a substantial catalog in 2021. OWC/MacSales.com sends me one! I haven't bought any parts from them in years. At least the aftermarket car parts places stop sending you one after a few months of not buying anything.

eppp 6y ago
You lose something when you dont have a catalog. I havent ever seen a website that was good at showing you options. Sure I can find whatever I am looking for specifically but I cant find things that I dont even know exist and might work better unless I happen to see someone write about it.

IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago

A lot of of folks dont realize this, but there is a direct link between the fall of the catalog, the ascendancy of amazon, and the demise of sears. Back in the day, the Sears catalog was the behemoth for 3rd party merchant sales, backed by Sears. You could get vendor credit, fulfillment etc, all with sears. Virtually every service you get today with Amazon (FBA, ads), you could get with sears, on their catalog. This is why the catalog was such a big deal. It was the 20th century platform. And its dead now

mcv 6y ago

Ages ago I heard that the IKEA catalog was the second most printed book in the world, after the Bible. Considering it was reprinted every year, often ignored or thrown away, and completely superceded by websites, it's probably about time it was discontinued. Yes, I also have childhood memories of reading through that thing, but these days if I want something from IKEA, their website is the first and only stop. Let's save these trees.

paxys 6y ago
Not sure you can call it a reprint if the content inside is completely different. If that was the case then a popular weekly magazine would anyways have way more total prints.
acomjean 6y ago
Reminds me of printed phone books. Every unit in my 35 unit building would get a new one every year. They'd sit in a pile (how many phone books do you need). For a couple years they'd stack this years phone book on last years phone book. Now not needed.
- rement 6y ago
  Reminds me of when I was in elementary school and we would have "phone book" drives. The class that collected the most phone books to be recycled would get some kind of prize. I remember walking around my neighborhood with a wagon collecting phone books. Good times.

Gravityloss 6y ago

I find paper catalogues really impractical because it's slow to flip the pages and search is also slower (often you have to go the directory at the end). Ikea's web page is okay, better than the competition. Availability is a problem for Ikea currently - but at least they have a lot of volume and a really ruthlessly culled assortment. So usually they're a lot better than the competition. Almost everything is available for taking with you when you're at the store. I bet if you're doing design work for Ikea, it goes through a lot of checking before it will be produced. Their personnel is absolutely great, I have really good experience of that.

rchaud 6y ago

I'm honestly sad to hear this. The catalog had great style, and the layouts and framing were gorgeous. For those who haven't seen it, rest assured it was not a boring sales catalogue with tiny product images jammed into every page. It was something you could put down and pick up every once in a while, and have new decor ideas. It had a curated feel, which is another example of the human touch that will disappear with algorithm-generated "inspo" layouts on Pinterest, or affiliate link heavy blog posts from Apartment Therapy. At least they plan on keeping an archive and having a compendium available for purchase. I hope that doesn't turn out to be vaporware.

Spivak 6y ago
Yeah, I hope they at least keep the content alive since they put a lot of effort into keeping up with interior decorating trends. I would absolutely subscribe to a magazine assembled by their group of editors.
gnopgnip 6y ago
Hopefully the people that created this before can create a digital first solution. Ikea notably was using 100% renders for the products in the catalog, they could make that process interactive

eplanit 6y ago

Can we beg ULine to do the same? Order one item and you'll be getting their wasted paper bricks every few weeks.

SEJeff 6y ago

This is kind of sad actually. IKEA made one of the best Apple trolls (literally) of all time with their "book book": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0 They made it as a parody in the style of an iPhone reveal presentation from Steve Jobs.

minikites 6y ago

Hacker News' priorities in a nutshell: Archaic furniture catalog halts printing: "How sad! What a loss to our culture!" Technology displaces millions of jobs, leaving real people destitute and without medical care: "That's just the free market, suck it up, rube!"

wrongdonf 6y ago

I love ikea. In the 90s and naughts it was a symbol of progress and its products complemented the sheik style that was so popular at the time. And it was commonly said to be cheap, and contributed to a new style of ephemeral living that was the precursor to modern tech nomadism and living by wire so to speak. Fresh euro-style industrialized in American fashion. But recently IKEA hasn’t seemed very cheap to me. And the throwing away of the olde ways has now progressed to a point where AGI can no longer be written off completely and with that comes the feeling that we may soon have thrown away too much.

underseacables 6y ago

The IKEA book book! https://youtu.be/MOXQo7nURs0 https://youtu.be/MOXQo7nURs0

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

Ahh, IKEA, where people buy their furniture for the Arch Linux effect.

99_00 6y ago

The article doesn't say why IKEA is ending the catalog. This is the closest they come: >Times change, however, and global companies hoping to stay relevant have little choice but to change with them. To that end, IKEA has announced that its catalog’s glorious run will come to an end, a decision the company arrived at within the past few months.

hedora 6y ago

I’ll miss the digital version of the catalog. It sounds like that’s discontinued too. I kind of wonder if Ikea is going to survive covid. Their web page says everything I want is chronically out of stock. I don’t see why they can’t pivot to touchless pickup or delivery. Instead, I’ve been buying furniture online from more than one of their competitors. The experience and quality control are worse than an in-store Ikea run, but the selection is better. It’s a step sideways, I suppose.

kevincox 6y ago
IKEA has delivery, at least to Toronto. However it is very expensive and most things were out of stock for a long time or restricted for in-store only (although it seems that a lot is back in stock now).

rumblestrut 6y ago

Sad to hear this. As a shopper of IKEA, I am not a fan of their apps or online versions for shopping. I find flipping through a catalog a much better experience.

ghostly_s 6y ago

I hope this means they're pouring serious resources into revamping their website, then. Recently did an order for delivery and it was endlessly frustrating.

crb002 6y ago

They could have charged a fee high enough to plant two trees for every one that went into the catalog. Sears died when the catalog did - but with IKEA I have never seen the catalog so maybe it is waste.