4 ms·

In some places consumer protection laws are non-existent. Even in the US some places will try to talk you out of it (ever try to return something in Chinatown,

by yardie 13y ago

In some places consumer protection laws are non-existent. Even in the US some places will try to talk you out of it (ever try to return something in Chinatown, NYC). I'm surprised it isn't higher for their European stores. The EU consumer protection laws are much stronger than the ones in the US, as Apple has found out.

tormeh 13y ago
Yeah, in some ways they are, but the rules for returning stuff are usually that the thing must be defect in some obvious way. That you're unsatisfied is usually not enough. Even in the case (like online shopping) when you can return stuff, it has to be unopened and unused. The rules on how long your product has to work are better, though.
- gknoy 13y ago
  Given that sometimes the only way to tell that an Ikea item is defective is to open it and try to put it together ("Hey, these holes don't line up, and that board is warped..."), a requirement to be unopened an unused would be ludicrous. I love the Ikea pieces we have. As someone else said, they're far better than other put-it-together-yourself pieces I've ever bought. However, quality has been flaky. I bought 4x of a shelving unit (Trofast), and two of them had a single piece where the holes were not aligned correctly. (The first one, I thought maybe it was just me, but it was clear after putting together two more that #1 and #4 were defective.) Fortunately, it was a different piece in each, so I was able to cobble together three pieces of furniture and return the fourth. They were very gracious and allowed me to return it despite the defect being only something you could tell when you actually tried to put it together. Since I was there with my kids, I would have been extremely unhappy had they asked me to demonstrate its failure. ;)
  - nawitus 13y ago
    The requirement for the item to be unopened is void if the item is defective.
  - Cederfjard 13y ago
    > Given that sometimes the only way to tell that an Ikea item is defective is to open it and try to put it together ("Hey, these holes don't line up, and that board is warped..."), a requirement to be unopened an unused would be ludicrous. Judging from the wording of tormeh's comment, and if the regulations and customs are similar where s/he is located to those here in Sweden, unopened and unused was meant to refer to cases where you actually CAN return stuff no questions asked, such as when shopping through mail order or online (sometimes stores give you this opportunity anyway, but it's not something that's required by law or ubiquitous). It's not a given that you can always buy something, try it out and then return it if it's not explicitly stated. If you're returning something because it was obviously defective when you bought it, then naturally it doesn't matter if you've opened the box.
lmm 13y ago
The EU has pretty strong consumer protection laws but we don't have this culture where you just buy something and return it if you don't like it, even in shops that advertise you can do that. The social expectation is that you only buy things you want, and only return them if there's an actual problem with them.
- yardie 13y ago
  We all buy things we want. As an American living in Europe it never occurred to me that I couldn't take something back because I simply didn't like it. The build quality was pretty bad. I buy on impulse and I keep almost everything I buy. If you erect barriers, even psychological ones, I'm much less likely to return. These barriers aren't on Amazon. If I decide after receiving that it's not what I wanted I return it and buy something else. That shop eventually went bankrupt and shutdown. It couldn't compete and win against it's current rivals and new online retailers. Who have same day delivery and simple return policy.

by yardie 13y ago

tormeh 13y ago

Yeah, in some ways they are, but the rules for returning stuff are usually that the thing must be defect in some obvious way. That you're unsatisfied is usually not enough. Even in the case (like online shopping) when you can return stuff, it has to be unopened and unused. The rules on how long your product has to work are better, though.

gknoy 13y ago
Given that sometimes the only way to tell that an Ikea item is defective is to open it and try to put it together ("Hey, these holes don't line up, and that board is warped..."), a requirement to be unopened an unused would be ludicrous. I love the Ikea pieces we have. As someone else said, they're far better than other put-it-together-yourself pieces I've ever bought. However, quality has been flaky. I bought 4x of a shelving unit (Trofast), and two of them had a single piece where the holes were not aligned correctly. (The first one, I thought maybe it was just me, but it was clear after putting together two more that #1 and #4 were defective.) Fortunately, it was a different piece in each, so I was able to cobble together three pieces of furniture and return the fourth. They were very gracious and allowed me to return it despite the defect being only something you could tell when you actually tried to put it together. Since I was there with my kids, I would have been extremely unhappy had they asked me to demonstrate its failure. ;)
- nawitus 13y ago
  The requirement for the item to be unopened is void if the item is defective.
- Cederfjard 13y ago
  > Given that sometimes the only way to tell that an Ikea item is defective is to open it and try to put it together ("Hey, these holes don't line up, and that board is warped..."), a requirement to be unopened an unused would be ludicrous. Judging from the wording of tormeh's comment, and if the regulations and customs are similar where s/he is located to those here in Sweden, unopened and unused was meant to refer to cases where you actually CAN return stuff no questions asked, such as when shopping through mail order or online (sometimes stores give you this opportunity anyway, but it's not something that's required by law or ubiquitous). It's not a given that you can always buy something, try it out and then return it if it's not explicitly stated. If you're returning something because it was obviously defective when you bought it, then naturally it doesn't matter if you've opened the box.

lmm 13y ago

The EU has pretty strong consumer protection laws but we don't have this culture where you just buy something and return it if you don't like it, even in shops that advertise you can do that. The social expectation is that you only buy things you want, and only return them if there's an actual problem with them.

yardie 13y ago
We all buy things we want. As an American living in Europe it never occurred to me that I couldn't take something back because I simply didn't like it. The build quality was pretty bad. I buy on impulse and I keep almost everything I buy. If you erect barriers, even psychological ones, I'm much less likely to return. These barriers aren't on Amazon. If I decide after receiving that it's not what I wanted I return it and buy something else. That shop eventually went bankrupt and shutdown. It couldn't compete and win against it's current rivals and new online retailers. Who have same day delivery and simple return policy.