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Call me boring but IKEA is one of the greatest shops I know. I'd really like to own shares in IKEA. I don't know any other furniture store that comes close to

by flexie 12y ago

Call me boring but IKEA is one of the greatest shops I know. I'd really like to own shares in IKEA. I don't know any other furniture store that comes close to having decent design and decent quality combined with decent prices and immediate delivery. Most other cheap end furniture stores have crappy design, lousy quality. As of today, if you want to buy a sofa, IKEA is one of the very few furniture stores where you can actually pick up the sofa right away. It's also one of the very few furniture stores that doesn't promote a few items and then hikes up the prices of other items. Prices are consistently average or sort of low so that customers trust that they are not being screwed. They are also great at having products for all price points. Even if you don't buy that sofa you are still likely to spend some money on napkins or towels or the meatballs. And imaging being able to test a new product or pricing or design in one or two of your stores that you know to have average customers and then roll out the product all over the world.

guard-of-terra 12y ago
To counter your opinion: Most of the Ikea furniture we owned lost form in a few years: Think sliding sections that stuck, aluminium tubes that deformed after some use. I'm not sure about price but the experience was subpar. Won't buy something expensive from them, like a sofa. We still enjoy Ikea as a source of smaller kitchenware and the like. And food is nice as well. And most of the furniture in my room were custom-built. It's not that expensive even, and allowed us to make a very smart and integrated use of the space we've got. Build times aren't great tho.
- zorbo 12y ago
  I've heard similar problems from other people. I've been buying Ikea furniture almost my entire life and I've never experienced this problem. Naturally I've had Ikea products wear and tear, but not generally faster than products from other companies in comparable price ranges.
- sspiff 12y ago
  Most of our stuff is from Ikea. There's a 2 tables, 1 desk and 4 chairs in our apartment not from Ikea. Nothing broke so far (3 years in). Our main sofa is a little bent in the middle, but not obviously so. I only noticed because before out vacuum cleaner's head could just fit underneath the sofa, and now only fits under at the far sides. The quality is not great. Most of their furniture is pressed wood, and is easily damaged. But in their price segment, I think they do pretty well.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I have a black leather couch I bought from Ikea more than 10 years ago (~$1000). To this day, its in my living/family room. Its survived 3+ moves, I've slept on it for months at a time, I've had friends have a lot of sex on it while I was out of town, etc. It has been through a lot of abuse, but still looks like new. I only buy Ikea furniture now.
- uniclaude 12y ago
  I agree. I feel like Ikea's main innovation was to integrate programmed obsolescence in tasteful furniture. Before I knew Ikea, buying a new bookshelf every couple years was foreign to me. Now, I have to take into consideration that any furniture I get there might break or bend under normal use, that even a wok might lose its non-stick surface after only a few uses, and many more reasons for my older relatives to make fun of me and my shiny purchases. I recently graduated from Ikea though, and most of the furniture in my apartment is also custom built. Best decision I took in the last couple of years (this, and learning Haskell)
  - blt 12y ago
    Don't use non-stick woks ;) They are supposed to be bare steel seasoned like cast-iron pans.
- buckbova 12y ago
  It's fine for what it is and would only buy for cheap office furniture. My last home had an IKEA kitchen that was a little over 10 years old with IKEA cabinets and flooring and what not. It was garbage. Cabinets surrounding the sink base had turned into deteriorated cardboard from contact with water. The flooring, wood laminate, felt like walking on plastic. The cabinets sat on plastic stilts. The whole thing was cheap and lousy. I tore that all out before I moved in a stick of furniture. I did salvage some for garage shelving.
  - enjo 12y ago
    I recently left a 7 year old Ikea cabinets. Was in perfect shape, far better than the previous places I'd lived (the hardware they put on that stuff is fantastic). The countertop wasn't Ikea and the flooring was an engineered hardwood, also not Ikea. Still I'd put those cabinets in my home again in a heartbeat.
- Htsthbjig 12y ago
  Interesting. I live in Europe, my house is entirely filled with IKEA furniture. So is my the house of my closest family members. Not a single problem so far and we have been using those things since the nineties. We buy probably the most expensive things in IKEA though (which is cheap compared to other places). If we buy a lamp, we buy the best one with LED lights and so on. So probably it has something to do with that.
- mortenjorck 12y ago
  In my experience, any general assessment of the quality of Ikea furniture isn't really useful, because it spans a wider gamut than almost any other furniture retailer. I've spent $40 on a chest of drawers that, while performing better than a $40 chest of drawers from Target, wasn't really all that great. I've also spent $150 on a different chest of drawers that has moved with me and still looks and feels as good as the day it was assembled. There's a rough you-get-what-you-pay-for with Ikea, but even that isn't a hard and fast rule: I bought the lowest-end sofa (since discontinued) back in 2005, and it's probably lasted longer than the next step up would have simply because it's a no-compromise wood-armed design rather than a some-compromises full-upholstery design. There's also the Ikea "Stockholm" class, which tends to be priced more like Crate & Barrel, but I can't speak to its quality from experience.
- pingec 12y ago
  I don't like IKEA at all. 1. I don't like things that break. Perhaps the price/performance ratio is not too bad but overall, the quality is lacking. Some have said their IKEA furniture has lasted for decades, well this is nothing special, really. Where I live it is normal to have furniture made of wood that is a hundred years old and it will be around for many more generations, if they decide to keep it. It always amazes me how many people are brainwashed with planned obsolescence. 2. Even if the quality was fine, I don't like the design. Whenever I go to IKEA I feel some form of a culture shock. Everything looks so cold... so Scandinavian. I live in the Mediterranean and the furniture we are used to looks way different than what IKEA sell.
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    > * Where I live it is normal to have furniture made of wood that is a hundred years old and it will be around for many more generations, if they decide to keep it.* That's great if you're well-off or one of your ancestors was. If you're trying to furnish an apartment on a tight budget, you are not going to get 100-year-old handcrafted hardwood no matter where you shop. You're basically saying "cheap furniture sucks because it's not as good as expensive furniture," which is obviously true but not really a useful observation.
    - pingec 12y ago
      What I meant to say was that the furniture itself is a hundred years old. All furniture was expensive back then but it was amortised long time ago. My point is that IMHO some products are not worth having at all. One time I bought a cheap desk at IKEA, a plain board with stainless steel legs. It soon started bothering me that placing a big pile of books on it would make it bend and I was then afraid to climb on top of it to clean the window, I was not sure it could support my weight. A few months later I had some guests who placed some heavy climbing equipment on it and managed to damage it, now the desk has a 5cm hole in the middle. In retrospect, to me such desk is wasted money even if priced at 5$. I ended up going to a local store and buying a proper desk for 4 times the price. It looks really nice and is very strong and it can be repaired if it ever gets damaged. Now, I could have spent the same money for a better quality desk in IKEA but in this price range there are other stores that can match the quality and even offer better looks (this is subjective - I'm not a fan of IKEA style). Also I still have 5 CFL bulbs from IKEA which I will never use. They were cheap but I did not expect they could be this bad.
jschulenklopper 12y ago
> I'd really like to own shares in IKEA. Same here, but that will not be possible. IKEA turns out to be a Dutch 'stichting', as described in a very interesting article in The Economist on the financial side of IKEA: http://www.economist.com/node/6919139 http://www.economist.com/node/6919139 "[...] an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous." "The parent for all IKEA companies is Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company. Ingka Holding, in turn, belongs entirely to Stichting Ingka Foundation. This is a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit-making legal entity, which was given the shares of Mr Kamprad in 1982."
- darkmighty 12y ago
  I agree that the "charity" definition is somewhat out of place here, but there's nothing with being a not for profit with definite goals -- the stated goal of "Innovation in the field of architectural and interior design" to me sounds a lot more solid than most other companies that are in it for a quick buck. Basically, society has decided that charities are nice and therefore deserve a competitive boost in form of tax exempts. Now It has to decide how nice are non-profits with a little more care.
drak0n1c 12y ago
Walmart's online furniture offerings are starting to outcompete Ikea's low end when it comes to price and quality. And you can choose between free delivery or in-store pickup. I just bought furniture essentials (dining set, dresser, bookcase) for my new apartment on Walmart's site for nearly half the price of getting it all at Ikea. As I assemble them they look nice and seem very solid, and the reviews say they last at least a few years just like Ikea. Walmart still isn't good for a few items, but those niches are nicely filled by Amazon (got an amazing 13 inch mattress from Amazon). Outside of those niches Walmart is cheaper than Amazon and Ikea. I rent, not own, so I'm just talking about low-end here.
ekianjo 12y ago
> close to having decent design and decent quality Decent design, maybe, but decent quality, certainly not. Have you ever cut through IKEA furniture for starters ? Most of the "wooden" stuff they sell is made of small wood chunks glued together which have no strength altogether and can be cut through like butter. This is such a joke. I recently cut through an IKEA table I owned, which looked like it had a wooden top, and I was shocked to discover it was actually carton below a very thin layer of wood that made up the volume. IKEA's materials are the cheapest stuff ever, and they try to hide that with the design, but seriously, it's just shite past the appearance.
- lloeki 12y ago
  They have a wide range of products and their structure is readily advertised, so no surprise. My table is solid wood, weights a ton and is damn robust. Both my table and bed disassemble in a snap and look great. IOW great, thorough design, but there's the accompanying price tag. Barring outliers[0], their cheap offering is cheap throughout, down to the materials. I've been extremely disappointed with their mattresses though, at any price tag, but I'm picky on that front. [0]: http://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/catalog/products/85590800/ http://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/catalog/products/85590800/

by flexie 12y ago

guard-of-terra 12y ago

To counter your opinion: Most of the Ikea furniture we owned lost form in a few years: Think sliding sections that stuck, aluminium tubes that deformed after some use. I'm not sure about price but the experience was subpar. Won't buy something expensive from them, like a sofa. We still enjoy Ikea as a source of smaller kitchenware and the like. And food is nice as well. And most of the furniture in my room were custom-built. It's not that expensive even, and allowed us to make a very smart and integrated use of the space we've got. Build times aren't great tho.

zorbo 12y ago
I've heard similar problems from other people. I've been buying Ikea furniture almost my entire life and I've never experienced this problem. Naturally I've had Ikea products wear and tear, but not generally faster than products from other companies in comparable price ranges.
sspiff 12y ago
Most of our stuff is from Ikea. There's a 2 tables, 1 desk and 4 chairs in our apartment not from Ikea. Nothing broke so far (3 years in). Our main sofa is a little bent in the middle, but not obviously so. I only noticed because before out vacuum cleaner's head could just fit underneath the sofa, and now only fits under at the far sides. The quality is not great. Most of their furniture is pressed wood, and is easily damaged. But in their price segment, I think they do pretty well.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
I have a black leather couch I bought from Ikea more than 10 years ago (~$1000). To this day, its in my living/family room. Its survived 3+ moves, I've slept on it for months at a time, I've had friends have a lot of sex on it while I was out of town, etc. It has been through a lot of abuse, but still looks like new. I only buy Ikea furniture now.
uniclaude 12y ago
I agree. I feel like Ikea's main innovation was to integrate programmed obsolescence in tasteful furniture. Before I knew Ikea, buying a new bookshelf every couple years was foreign to me. Now, I have to take into consideration that any furniture I get there might break or bend under normal use, that even a wok might lose its non-stick surface after only a few uses, and many more reasons for my older relatives to make fun of me and my shiny purchases. I recently graduated from Ikea though, and most of the furniture in my apartment is also custom built. Best decision I took in the last couple of years (this, and learning Haskell)
- blt 12y ago
  Don't use non-stick woks ;) They are supposed to be bare steel seasoned like cast-iron pans.
buckbova 12y ago
It's fine for what it is and would only buy for cheap office furniture. My last home had an IKEA kitchen that was a little over 10 years old with IKEA cabinets and flooring and what not. It was garbage. Cabinets surrounding the sink base had turned into deteriorated cardboard from contact with water. The flooring, wood laminate, felt like walking on plastic. The cabinets sat on plastic stilts. The whole thing was cheap and lousy. I tore that all out before I moved in a stick of furniture. I did salvage some for garage shelving.
- enjo 12y ago
  I recently left a 7 year old Ikea cabinets. Was in perfect shape, far better than the previous places I'd lived (the hardware they put on that stuff is fantastic). The countertop wasn't Ikea and the flooring was an engineered hardwood, also not Ikea. Still I'd put those cabinets in my home again in a heartbeat.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
Interesting. I live in Europe, my house is entirely filled with IKEA furniture. So is my the house of my closest family members. Not a single problem so far and we have been using those things since the nineties. We buy probably the most expensive things in IKEA though (which is cheap compared to other places). If we buy a lamp, we buy the best one with LED lights and so on. So probably it has something to do with that.
mortenjorck 12y ago
In my experience, any general assessment of the quality of Ikea furniture isn't really useful, because it spans a wider gamut than almost any other furniture retailer. I've spent $40 on a chest of drawers that, while performing better than a $40 chest of drawers from Target, wasn't really all that great. I've also spent $150 on a different chest of drawers that has moved with me and still looks and feels as good as the day it was assembled. There's a rough you-get-what-you-pay-for with Ikea, but even that isn't a hard and fast rule: I bought the lowest-end sofa (since discontinued) back in 2005, and it's probably lasted longer than the next step up would have simply because it's a no-compromise wood-armed design rather than a some-compromises full-upholstery design. There's also the Ikea "Stockholm" class, which tends to be priced more like Crate & Barrel, but I can't speak to its quality from experience.
pingec 12y ago
I don't like IKEA at all. 1. I don't like things that break. Perhaps the price/performance ratio is not too bad but overall, the quality is lacking. Some have said their IKEA furniture has lasted for decades, well this is nothing special, really. Where I live it is normal to have furniture made of wood that is a hundred years old and it will be around for many more generations, if they decide to keep it. It always amazes me how many people are brainwashed with planned obsolescence. 2. Even if the quality was fine, I don't like the design. Whenever I go to IKEA I feel some form of a culture shock. Everything looks so cold... so Scandinavian. I live in the Mediterranean and the furniture we are used to looks way different than what IKEA sell.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  > * Where I live it is normal to have furniture made of wood that is a hundred years old and it will be around for many more generations, if they decide to keep it.* That's great if you're well-off or one of your ancestors was. If you're trying to furnish an apartment on a tight budget, you are not going to get 100-year-old handcrafted hardwood no matter where you shop. You're basically saying "cheap furniture sucks because it's not as good as expensive furniture," which is obviously true but not really a useful observation.
  - pingec 12y ago
    What I meant to say was that the furniture itself is a hundred years old. All furniture was expensive back then but it was amortised long time ago. My point is that IMHO some products are not worth having at all. One time I bought a cheap desk at IKEA, a plain board with stainless steel legs. It soon started bothering me that placing a big pile of books on it would make it bend and I was then afraid to climb on top of it to clean the window, I was not sure it could support my weight. A few months later I had some guests who placed some heavy climbing equipment on it and managed to damage it, now the desk has a 5cm hole in the middle. In retrospect, to me such desk is wasted money even if priced at 5$. I ended up going to a local store and buying a proper desk for 4 times the price. It looks really nice and is very strong and it can be repaired if it ever gets damaged. Now, I could have spent the same money for a better quality desk in IKEA but in this price range there are other stores that can match the quality and even offer better looks (this is subjective - I'm not a fan of IKEA style). Also I still have 5 CFL bulbs from IKEA which I will never use. They were cheap but I did not expect they could be this bad.

jschulenklopper 12y ago

> I'd really like to own shares in IKEA. Same here, but that will not be possible. IKEA turns out to be a Dutch 'stichting', as described in a very interesting article in The Economist on the financial side of IKEA: http://www.economist.com/node/6919139 http://www.economist.com/node/6919139 "[...] an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous." "The parent for all IKEA companies is Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company. Ingka Holding, in turn, belongs entirely to Stichting Ingka Foundation. This is a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit-making legal entity, which was given the shares of Mr Kamprad in 1982."

darkmighty 12y ago
I agree that the "charity" definition is somewhat out of place here, but there's nothing with being a not for profit with definite goals -- the stated goal of "Innovation in the field of architectural and interior design" to me sounds a lot more solid than most other companies that are in it for a quick buck. Basically, society has decided that charities are nice and therefore deserve a competitive boost in form of tax exempts. Now It has to decide how nice are non-profits with a little more care.

drak0n1c 12y ago

Walmart's online furniture offerings are starting to outcompete Ikea's low end when it comes to price and quality. And you can choose between free delivery or in-store pickup. I just bought furniture essentials (dining set, dresser, bookcase) for my new apartment on Walmart's site for nearly half the price of getting it all at Ikea. As I assemble them they look nice and seem very solid, and the reviews say they last at least a few years just like Ikea. Walmart still isn't good for a few items, but those niches are nicely filled by Amazon (got an amazing 13 inch mattress from Amazon). Outside of those niches Walmart is cheaper than Amazon and Ikea. I rent, not own, so I'm just talking about low-end here.

ekianjo 12y ago

> close to having decent design and decent quality Decent design, maybe, but decent quality, certainly not. Have you ever cut through IKEA furniture for starters ? Most of the "wooden" stuff they sell is made of small wood chunks glued together which have no strength altogether and can be cut through like butter. This is such a joke. I recently cut through an IKEA table I owned, which looked like it had a wooden top, and I was shocked to discover it was actually carton below a very thin layer of wood that made up the volume. IKEA's materials are the cheapest stuff ever, and they try to hide that with the design, but seriously, it's just shite past the appearance.

lloeki 12y ago
They have a wide range of products and their structure is readily advertised, so no surprise. My table is solid wood, weights a ton and is damn robust. Both my table and bed disassemble in a snap and look great. IOW great, thorough design, but there's the accompanying price tag. Barring outliers[0], their cheap offering is cheap throughout, down to the materials. I've been extremely disappointed with their mattresses though, at any price tag, but I'm picky on that front. [0]: http://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/catalog/products/85590800/ http://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/catalog/products/85590800/