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For some reason people hate IKEA in the US. Was trying to sell a standing desk I bought there for 750$ and nobody wanted it. Ended up selling it for 150$. I als
by baby 3y ago
For some reason people hate IKEA in the US. Was trying to sell a standing desk I bought there for 750$ and nobody wanted it. Ended up selling it for 150$. I also had a Jarvis and it was gone in an instant, even though the IKEA one was much much better.
I Often hear people saying that IKEA furnitures don’t travel well or don’t last long. It’s like we’re not going to the same IKEA.
- sircastor 3y agoI think a lot of this is attached to a puritan-based work ethic. If something isn't hard to do, or require a lot of time and energy then it's not of high quality or worth having. It's probably a signaling thing too...
- etrautmann 3y agoPossibly, though some products like the PAX just truly don’t move well even once.
- muro 3y agoBut it is excellent the first time.
- fabioborellini 3y agoYes, Pax is only sturdy when mounted to a wall. It is very unstable by itself. But isn’t it meant to be permanently installed? I’m expecting to leave my Pax when I’m moving out.
- swatcoder 3y agoIKEA is beloved by many in the US and generally one of the most specifically in-demand brands in the market for used contemporary furniture. You might just be in an unusual region or had some other reasons why your listings didn't perform the way you expected. That said, I am one of those people who doesn't get a lot from them so I can speak to some of criticism. Part of it is just the aesthetic, and theirs doesn't match how I decorate my own space or what I usually feel good around. That's just the nature of aesthetics, though, and there's always going to be some difference in taste between any two people and any two regions. As for quality, though, I think the critique you hear reflects the quality of their budget products. If you're eyeing modern or euro designs at a fancy furniture studio and then go to IKEA to find a cheap approximation, you discover that much of the cheapest stuff has the same flimsy glueboard, peeling laminate, and unstable joinery of the cheap stuff at Wal-mart. That shouldn't rally be a surprise (cheap is cheap for a reason) and doesn't hold true for their mid-range and higher products. And heck, it's not even really fair when Walmart and Target furniture isn't any better, but it's enough to keep feeding the reputation.
- JohnFen 3y agoI legitimately had no idea IKEA sold anything of real quality. TIL.
- rsynnott 3y agoI mean, it depends what you mean by ‘real quality’; you’re not going to get hand-crafted expertly made stuff that will last for centuries or anything. But for the price, their mid to high end stuff is excellent.
- JohnFen 3y agoI don't mean anything like artisan or hand-crafted. I mean well-built, out of quality materials. A good quality table, for instance, should last decades.
- rsynnott 3y agoI think a lot of their solid wood stuff (it’s not all chipboard!) would fit the bill, tbh. You do have to be slightly careful with the assembly (it’s not difficult, but some people like to treat the instructions as suggestions, and then get annoyed when it falls apart…)
- valicord 3y agoI'm writing this comment sitting at a basic IKEA particleboard desk that I've had since 2014. It has survived daily usage for 10 years and 2 moves (one coast-to-coast). The only signs of wear is some scuffed paint where the hands rest in front of the keyboard and veneer is starting to peel slightly in one the corner.
- ghaff 3y agoYeah, I have a couple of Ikea chairs in a room that replaced (cheap) wicker that was falling apart. They haven't been used hard but, to me, they were pretty inexpensive, look good, and are very comfortable. On the other hand, I bought a dresser with a lot of particle board and, no, it's by no means well made. But it's in a bedroom and it works. I could have spent 4x (or more) for a nicely made hardwood dresser from a good New England brand. But even getting it into the bedroom upstairs might have been a bit of an adventure.
- mortenjorck 3y agoI think the reason for this is simple: Ikea does make some pretty poor-quality furniture, but it's often on the floor right next to some very well-built stuff that will last for many years. Price is sometimes an indicator (I bought two Ikea dressers ~15 years ago; I kept the cheaper one for only a few years while the more expensive one is still going strong) but not always (my 18-year-old sofa was the entry-level option at the time).
- resource_waste 3y agoBack in 2012 I furnished a home with Ikea furniture. Yes I hate them. You'd spend $60 on a book case and spend the next 4 hours trying to understand what the instructions mean and how to build it. You also needed a partner to hold corners together. Now today, the furniture instructions are better and instead 16 different weird fastener, there are 8. Its a frustration thing. Ikea didn't really do anything but be low cost. We blame Ikea like we blame Walmart for having drug addicts.
- illiac786 3y agoI think this every time I built something ikea, then I build something from another brand and I discover a new abyss, then I go back to ikea. It's a cycle.
- nytesky 3y agoAgreed, self assembly is terrible but IKEA is generally the least terrible.
- vundercind 3y agoYeah I don’t get the complaints about IKEA instructions. They have the best furniture-assembly directions I’ve seen. They have a lot in common with old LEGO set instructions. Maybe people who hate them didn’t do a bunch of that as a child?
- KerrAvon 3y agoI'm with you -- I've assembled a lot of random stuff recently and I wish everyone had instructions half as good as IKEA's.
- rsynnott 3y agoYeah, I’m not particularly handy (I break out in a cold sweat whenever anything requires more than trivial assembly), but I’ve never had any issue with assembling Ikea stuff.
- Aeolun 3y ago
- nytesky 3y ago$750 for an IKEA desk is crazy money. Does it have hydraulics to raise and lower the desk? But depreciation on IKEA is huge because while it can last a long time within a household, it moves very poorly so if it has been moved or reassembled once or twice, it’s likely near end of life. But hard to evaluate that, it’s not like it has an odometer — hence value for used it very low.
- koyote 3y agoThose desks do have hydraulics: https://www.ikea.com/au/en/p/bekant-desk-sit-stand-white-s09222577/ https://www.ikea.com/au/en/p/bekant-desk-sit-stand-white-s09... Ikea's goods usually come in different price ranges with the most expensive often not being 'cheap' but 'cheap given the quality'. That being said, often their cheapest stuff is the best value for money because it's so cheap that it lasting more than a year would be a miracle (but they usually do!).
- askvictor 3y ago> Those desks do have hydraulics: Well, an electric motor
- _ea1k 3y agoYeah, ikea standing desk prices are crazy. There are plenty of comparable products on Amazon for a lot less money. I kept looking at them in the store thinking that there must be something that could warrant the price, but I just can't see it.
- JohnFen 3y agoI don't hate IKEA at all, but I've found that a lot of their furniture doesn't last more than a couple of years. I consider it "temporary furniture".
- jghn 3y agoIt really depends. IKEA runs the entire range of very temporary to actually pretty good. The trick is knowing which is which, although price points are usually a good indicator.
- rsynnott 3y agoYeah, I dunno, maybe it’s different stuff in the US? I know at least some of the items are different. With the exception of the aforementioned table (which I think cost about 8 euro at the time, so, really, what did I expect) I’ve found all their stuff to be of very decent quality, certainly better than what you could get from ‘traditional’ furniture stores at the same price.
- KerrAvon 3y agoThe problem with used IKEA furniture is that it's all DIY-assembled. You don't really know if it was built properly.
- quartesixte 3y agoSame here — I have an Ikea bedframe that’s nearly a 2 decades old at this point and has moved four times. An office chair lasted me 7 years. Bookcases over a decade old. I grew up in a nearly all Ikea household, and it’s only later in life I have discovered their reputation. Am I missing something?
- StressedDev 3y agoNo - Some of Ikea’s furniture really lasts. I have a 25 year old Ikea couch. It needs to be reupholstered but it is still comfortable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- swader999 3y agoI just don't like walking through their ENTIRE store.
- muro 3y agoFew things in life are draining like an IKEA visit.
- Tagbert 3y agoYou should start at the warehouse section and walk though it in reverse to get where you want to be.
- onli 3y agoYou don't have to. Every IKEA store has shortcuts to quickly go to the section you want. And at the start, after the stairs usually, you can go directly to the restaurant and to the small stuff section, if you want to skip the furniture show rooms completely. IKEA is actually awesome for this scenario.
- Aeolun 3y ago> I Often hear people saying that IKEA furnitures don’t travel well or don’t last long. It’s like we’re not going to the same IKEA. I mean, if you are comparing with heirloom class furniture then that’s certainly true. After taking the cabinet or bed apart and sticking it together 4 or 5 times, you certainly start to notice some degradation. But then we’re talking about a factor 100 price difference.
- ericd 3y agoThe thing is, antique stores are stuffed to the gills with heirloom class furniture, and it doesn’t cost 100x the amount. Gorgeous solid cherry, mahogany, etc, where even the backs and drawer bottoms are solid can be had for a song. We recently tried to find a mostly solid wood IKEA dresser, but because they’re switching all their designs to new anti-tip designs over the next few months, almost everything was out of stock. So we decided to look a bit further afield, and we went to our local antique shop. We ended up spending $600 for a totally refinished solid cherry dresser, delivered into our room. It’s stunning, totally solid cherry, and I think slightly less expensive than the IKEA dresser we were trying to get. Not spending 2 hours cranking screws was a really nice bonus.
- Aeolun 3y agoHmm, I’m not sure that’s necessarily true everywhere. We replaced our IKEA (or equivalent) stuff with solid wood antiques and they were all $1000+. We had only two items to really replace, but compared to the $50 that the IKEA stuff cost it was quite an expense.
- ericd 3y agoYeah, maybe this place was unusually cheap, but chatting with the owner made it sound like the supply far outstripped the demand, so I don’t think that’s fundamentally true. That said, I’d still take the $1000 solid antique over the $600 mostly solid IKEA piece.
- xandrius 3y agoYeah, most stuff at Ikea is either decent or crap temporary things. Also the style does get really old pretty fast for me. I think good second hand furniture is where it's at: you get to not buy yet another new thing and get something solid and good.
- class3shock 3y agoIn the US alot of peoples first experience with Ikea is buying the cheapest desk, couch, bookcase, etc. for a dorm room or first apartment. And those are largely trash that won't survive a move, spilled water, accidental bump, etc. They have a line of pine furniture I like, as well as other things that are solid for the price (their kitchen cabinets) but you only have one chance to make a first impression as they say.
- vmladenov 3y agoI dislike their engineered wood stuff. It’s decent for furnishing an apartment but for more permanent things real hardwood just feels nicer, and IKEA has relatively few options with that material. I had an engineered wood bed frame from them split in half, whereas an older IKEA pine (not hardwood but whatever) bed frame still lives on.