6 ms·

This is all true, and obviously so. But the flip side is that IKEA does have good stuff at good prices, and they have pretty much everything you need to furnis

by jbotz 5y ago

This is all true, and obviously so. But the flip side is that IKEA does have good stuff at good prices, and they have pretty much everything you need to furnish and equip a home. Walking the entire IKEA maze is still faster than visiting all the separate retailers you would otherwise need to visit, and within the same budget you're likely to get higher quality at IKEA. I'm not saying that their quality is very high, but it's usually at least adequate which is better than what you usually get at lower-end prices at other retailers where quality nowadays is a big crap-shoot and half of all items break after the first few uses. When I lived in a place that had IKEA stores I dreaded going there, but I never regretted it. Now I live where there aren't any, and I rather miss them.

IshKebab 5y ago
They have cheap products at cheap prices. Nothing wrong with that. There's a huge market for disposable chipboard furniture. But they aren't really any cheaper than the competition when you compare like for like. As soon as you get to real wood they're usually pretty comparable to the rest of the market.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
  I've had Ikea furniture last more than ten years; the bookcases I inherited from my grandfather probably lasted more than twenty in total (and I only got rid of them because I moved abroad). I don't think that's "disposable". It depends a bit on which product you get, but overall I find the quality to be pretty decent. The best? No. But certainly not "disposable" either. There's some shops that offer significantly worse (and often cheaper) quality furniture. I think part of the success of Ikea is that it strikes the right balance between quality and price: you get decent quality for a decent price.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    20 years is disposable for furniture. Well made furniture can easily last 100 years.
    - Beldin 5y ago
      I've seen plenty of folks replacing furniture within 20 years. Not necessarily all furniture, but most. 20ish years gets you from student housing (first major buying of furniture) to your kids being teenagers. For plenty of furniture, that is sufficient.
    - Beltalowda 5y ago
      It lasted 20 years and they were still fine; as I said, I only got rid of them due to a move. They easily could have lasted several more decades.
- Spivak 5y ago
  If you call IKEA furniture cardboard then you’ve clearly never bought any. I’m sure you can find stuff they sell that’s composite (I’d assume desks) but you’d have to look. Everything I have from IKEA is real wood, it’s cheap lightweight wood, but it’s wood. IKEA’s value prop is that for the same price as places like Wayfair you get a little better quality, the stuff looks good together in a house, and it’s not offensively designed or chugey. shudders so much faux weathered “farmhouse” garbage.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    It’s not that hard, some of their most popular lines are cardboard or chipboard. Lack is largely cardboard. Malm is chipboard.
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    The poster above you called it chipboard, not cardboard, but I've always called it cardboard myself. And I consider myself something of an IKEA fan. IKEA doesn't even hide this - they've put up cross-sections of their furniture before and you can see that it is a veneer over what is essentially cardboard. That said, it seems to work quite well. It's far from heirloom quality furniture, but it does the job, and I completely agree with you that it's strength is a unified design that makes it easy to mix/match in your house and come up with a nice, modern look for a quite affordable price.
    - moogly 5y ago
      Only the absolutely cheapest stuff is structural cardboard or particle board or MDF. One exception is probably the PAX series of wardrobe/closet system, which is relatively expensive though it's veneered particle board. The kitchen cabinets are also MDF, but relatively cheap. Definitely cheaper than most competing modular systems (that tend to also be MDF these days). But a lot of their furniture is solid wood.
      - graftak 5y ago
        Their kitchen cabinets are definitely veneered particle board, it’s rather heavy weight and good quality particle board though, it’s comparable to quality-MDF in weight.
- pjerem 5y ago
  > They have cheap products at cheap prices. It depends on what you call a cheap product. About everything in my home comes from IKEA. Every furniture looks like brand new after decades. The only items that are damaged were damaged during moving between houses. Yes IKEA furniture is sometimes pretty bad at being moved in a truck. But, while it’s not premium, the quality, for me have something really important : it’s consistent. In a lot of shops, you barely discover at home if you bought something of bad or high quality. At IKEA, you at least know it’ll never be bad quality because even the cheapest item comes in "ok" quality. I’ve bought literally hundreds pieces of furniture plus an entire kitchen and I’ve been only disappointed once, with a couch, that I still have.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  I don’t think so. IKEA stuff is way better than cheap crap in other places. Most of their furniture has a long production run and gets tweaked, etc. The chipboard crap at most places is here today gone tomorrow. You may not like something about a Billy bookcase, but it’s known.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    I wasn't talking about chipboard competitors.
sidewndr46 5y ago
I just walk in the exit, grab what I want and leave. It has never been a problem for me.
- smilespray 5y ago
  Yup. Bought a book case in 1m 30s with this method. I timed it.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    How do you know which aisle and row to go to? And which items to take from there?
    - HarryHirsch 5y ago
      The website tells you aisle/bin number, you can print out a shopping list and bring it. If you forgot, there's computer terminals in the warehouse section where you can look up where the flatpack you need is kept.
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        This is tremendous information for me. I have literally avoided going to IKEA for over a year in order to purchase an area rug and end table because I did not want to navigate their maze, spending 2 hours to get those 2 items. I already know exactly what i want from their website. Thank you!
        ornornor 5y ago
        If that doesn’t work, you can also pay a small, nominal fee for an employee to gather all your stuff and you just come pick it up at the customer service desk. Still ridiculous that you have to pay for the privilege of not wasting 2h in the maze but at least something.
- ornornor 5y ago
frereubu 5y ago
You don't need to "walk the IKEA maze" if you know your local store. I used to live near the one in south London, and knew all the shortcuts - the first was to walk through a passage by the cafe, then through a set of doors directly opposite, and so on. They're not forbidden to customers, just not obvious because they want you to walk the whole way around. There's definitely something that happens to most people when they walk into an IKEA, as if their conscious mind disconnects and they just blandly obey the behavioural hints in store, like arrows on the floor. It reminds me a bit of slaughterhouses, where the object is to keep the animals as calm as possible right up until the moment that they're killed.
- Nullabillity 5y ago
  The shortcuts have even been explicitly signposted in all of the IKEAs I have been to.
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    Same here. I remember the first time finding it because I wanted to get to the food area and one other specific area and thought there has to be a better way. They're not hard to spot if you look for them, doorways (with or without doors) in the walls separating areas. Now I'll either 'go on the tour' or get the item and out, usually a mix touring a couple areas. The food is also a really good deal and somewhat different from the usual fare. I remember getting a bocconcini and tomato salad for a few dollars. The food is designed to keep you shopping, but you can take advantage of it separately.
  - ornornor 5y ago
    No, there are plenty of hidden in plain sight shortcuts that aren’t marked on the maze board hanging from the ceiling. Just look at the employees move about, they use double doors to move between sections much more efficiently than you do by using the dotted lines on the ceiling signs.

by jbotz 5y ago

IshKebab 5y ago

They have cheap products at cheap prices. Nothing wrong with that. There's a huge market for disposable chipboard furniture. But they aren't really any cheaper than the competition when you compare like for like. As soon as you get to real wood they're usually pretty comparable to the rest of the market.

Beltalowda 5y ago
I've had Ikea furniture last more than ten years; the bookcases I inherited from my grandfather probably lasted more than twenty in total (and I only got rid of them because I moved abroad). I don't think that's "disposable". It depends a bit on which product you get, but overall I find the quality to be pretty decent. The best? No. But certainly not "disposable" either. There's some shops that offer significantly worse (and often cheaper) quality furniture. I think part of the success of Ikea is that it strikes the right balance between quality and price: you get decent quality for a decent price.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  20 years is disposable for furniture. Well made furniture can easily last 100 years.
  - Beldin 5y ago
    I've seen plenty of folks replacing furniture within 20 years. Not necessarily all furniture, but most. 20ish years gets you from student housing (first major buying of furniture) to your kids being teenagers. For plenty of furniture, that is sufficient.
  - Beltalowda 5y ago
    It lasted 20 years and they were still fine; as I said, I only got rid of them due to a move. They easily could have lasted several more decades.
Spivak 5y ago
If you call IKEA furniture cardboard then you’ve clearly never bought any. I’m sure you can find stuff they sell that’s composite (I’d assume desks) but you’d have to look. Everything I have from IKEA is real wood, it’s cheap lightweight wood, but it’s wood. IKEA’s value prop is that for the same price as places like Wayfair you get a little better quality, the stuff looks good together in a house, and it’s not offensively designed or chugey. shudders so much faux weathered “farmhouse” garbage.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  It’s not that hard, some of their most popular lines are cardboard or chipboard. Lack is largely cardboard. Malm is chipboard.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  The poster above you called it chipboard, not cardboard, but I've always called it cardboard myself. And I consider myself something of an IKEA fan. IKEA doesn't even hide this - they've put up cross-sections of their furniture before and you can see that it is a veneer over what is essentially cardboard. That said, it seems to work quite well. It's far from heirloom quality furniture, but it does the job, and I completely agree with you that it's strength is a unified design that makes it easy to mix/match in your house and come up with a nice, modern look for a quite affordable price.
  - moogly 5y ago
    Only the absolutely cheapest stuff is structural cardboard or particle board or MDF. One exception is probably the PAX series of wardrobe/closet system, which is relatively expensive though it's veneered particle board. The kitchen cabinets are also MDF, but relatively cheap. Definitely cheaper than most competing modular systems (that tend to also be MDF these days). But a lot of their furniture is solid wood.
    - graftak 5y ago
      Their kitchen cabinets are definitely veneered particle board, it’s rather heavy weight and good quality particle board though, it’s comparable to quality-MDF in weight.
pjerem 5y ago
> They have cheap products at cheap prices. It depends on what you call a cheap product. About everything in my home comes from IKEA. Every furniture looks like brand new after decades. The only items that are damaged were damaged during moving between houses. Yes IKEA furniture is sometimes pretty bad at being moved in a truck. But, while it’s not premium, the quality, for me have something really important : it’s consistent. In a lot of shops, you barely discover at home if you bought something of bad or high quality. At IKEA, you at least know it’ll never be bad quality because even the cheapest item comes in "ok" quality. I’ve bought literally hundreds pieces of furniture plus an entire kitchen and I’ve been only disappointed once, with a couch, that I still have.
Spooky23 5y ago
I don’t think so. IKEA stuff is way better than cheap crap in other places. Most of their furniture has a long production run and gets tweaked, etc. The chipboard crap at most places is here today gone tomorrow. You may not like something about a Billy bookcase, but it’s known.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I wasn't talking about chipboard competitors.

sidewndr46 5y ago

I just walk in the exit, grab what I want and leave. It has never been a problem for me.

smilespray 5y ago
Yup. Bought a book case in 1m 30s with this method. I timed it.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  How do you know which aisle and row to go to? And which items to take from there?
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    The website tells you aisle/bin number, you can print out a shopping list and bring it. If you forgot, there's computer terminals in the warehouse section where you can look up where the flatpack you need is kept.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      This is tremendous information for me. I have literally avoided going to IKEA for over a year in order to purchase an area rug and end table because I did not want to navigate their maze, spending 2 hours to get those 2 items. I already know exactly what i want from their website. Thank you!
      - ornornor 5y ago
        If that doesn’t work, you can also pay a small, nominal fee for an employee to gather all your stuff and you just come pick it up at the customer service desk. Still ridiculous that you have to pay for the privilege of not wasting 2h in the maze but at least something.
ornornor 5y ago

frereubu 5y ago

You don't need to "walk the IKEA maze" if you know your local store. I used to live near the one in south London, and knew all the shortcuts - the first was to walk through a passage by the cafe, then through a set of doors directly opposite, and so on. They're not forbidden to customers, just not obvious because they want you to walk the whole way around. There's definitely something that happens to most people when they walk into an IKEA, as if their conscious mind disconnects and they just blandly obey the behavioural hints in store, like arrows on the floor. It reminds me a bit of slaughterhouses, where the object is to keep the animals as calm as possible right up until the moment that they're killed.

Nullabillity 5y ago
The shortcuts have even been explicitly signposted in all of the IKEAs I have been to.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  Same here. I remember the first time finding it because I wanted to get to the food area and one other specific area and thought there has to be a better way. They're not hard to spot if you look for them, doorways (with or without doors) in the walls separating areas. Now I'll either 'go on the tour' or get the item and out, usually a mix touring a couple areas. The food is also a really good deal and somewhat different from the usual fare. I remember getting a bocconcini and tomato salad for a few dollars. The food is designed to keep you shopping, but you can take advantage of it separately.
- ornornor 5y ago
  No, there are plenty of hidden in plain sight shortcuts that aren’t marked on the maze board hanging from the ceiling. Just look at the employees move about, they use double doors to move between sections much more efficiently than you do by using the dotted lines on the ceiling signs.