Ikea - Free Hernia With Every Sofa!

The BBQ Pit
1

I love Ikea. I would go into more detail on the ways I love it, but this is a rant, it wouldn’t be appropriate. I spent a rather sad amount of time at that store earlier this year, and fell in love with a red sofabed that was destined for me. It was perfect: gorgeous, versatile and cheap, just my type.

So was my GF, and since it was her dragging me to the place most of the time, I hadn’t been since we broke up.

But now I’m moving house, so today I went back to Ikea and looked for my sofabed. Alas, it was not there! They’ve stopped making it. :frowning:

But they did have another nice sofabed, in the bargain section too! :smiley:

I decided to buy it, along with two large bookcases, a dining table, four chairs, a coffee table and a plant that I was also buying from the Bargain section. I had to wait twenty minutes before one of the staff would even open the door at that section, and then she didn’t deign to come out, so that I had to lean over and call to her with my hands cupped round my mouth. She semaphored to me that I had to put my three-seater sofabed, two large bookcases, dining table, four chairs, coffee table and a plant onto a trolley and take them to a till.

Put a **three-seater sofabed, two large bookcases, a dining table, four chairs, a coffee table and a plant **onto a trolley. Right.

Unsurprisingly, I found this difficult.

I did try. Several passers-by also tried. Several other passers-by also stopped to laugh and point. Several workers failed to stop at all, even when called. Even the coffee table - the smallest item (it was a big plant) - wouldn’t fit on the trolley, and I am sorry to be such a weak, feeble woman, but I couldn’t quite manage to lift the three-seater sofabed above my head and stroll to the checkouts with it.

The tills are right next to the Bargain section, beyond dragging distance, but within sight. They were extremely busy. If I had managed to get one item into the queue, I would have held the rest of the line up for half an hour while I struggled to get everything else over there. And I truly don’t understand why I had to take the items to the tills at all - they are reduced items, they don’t have barcodes to scan. I could have just walked up there with the price tags, which were significantly lighter.

However, customer services assured me, with a patronising smile, that yes dear you do have to take your goods to the till. So I tried again.

I really, really wanted that sofa. I was getting quite attached to the rest of the stuff too. Thus I arranged for it to be delivered to my new address (which is, bizarrely, the same delivery cost as my current address, even though I’m now a quarter of a mile away and the new place is 20 miles away). The delivery staff were lovely and offered to take all my small goods too. Yippee!

But after several hours of struggling - no exaggeration - I had to give up and leave it all. Ikea lost nearly £400 worth of custom because their staff wouldn’t help a customer carry some goods that it was physically impossible to handle alone.

And guess what - if I had managed to get the goods to the till, it would only have been to see the delivery staff arrive to drag them all back round to the bargain bay … exactly where they’d started from. :rolleyes:

If you’re wondering why I tried so long, it’s because I was stuck there anyway, waiting for one of my ‘hand-out’ goods from the penthouse cardboard box levels.

I have a bad back now. :frowning:

I’ll go back on Saturday, when I’ll have a removal van and several people with me anyway, and hope the stuff’s still there. Yes, I’ll still be going back, it’s cheap!

(But I did write a little complaining note for them. I then had to rewrite it, because the complaint form was too short. I am now considering whether to fill out a complaint form about the length of their complaint form).

2

I heard they thought they would have some great success with their Balsa Wood E_Z Move furnature line. I understand a small child could hold a whole sofa bed over his/her head with ease.

Trouble was, the durabilty issue came up with the prototypes.

Also, a good sneeze could re-arrange the livingroom.

3

Word on the street is, complaining about the length of a complaint form is a really good way to have all your complaints taken most seriously, and placed at the very tippy-top of the Complaint Review Manager’s Giant Stack O’Complaints. :wink:

4

Just wanted to say that I laughed out loud this:

:smiley:

5

Ah, Ikea. I well remember setting out from their Gateshead store, bearing several giant sheets of cardboard which would, in due course, be folded into huge boxes (personal effects for the storage of) …

Unfortunately, it was a windy day, and there is precious little in the way of shelter in the car park of the Gateshead branch of Ikea. Did I mention the giant sheets of cardboard?

I understand Ikea employees still reminisce fondly about the sight of me tacking into the wind, like HMS Victory under a full press of sail. Took me half an hour to get to the bus stop.

6

If only you’d taken your rollerblades you could have foregone the bus altogether!

7

I don’t know whether to laugh harder at Steve Wright’s description of his cardboard sales, or at Mac Guffin’s comment “a good sneeze could rearrange the living room”.

In all honestly, I’ll laugh at both. A knowing laugh. I just furnished my new apartment via Ikea. And even though I had to pay a delivery fee for the big stuff, the things that CAN fit into a Golf are still heavy and/or bulky. And if I don’t laugh about it, I’ll start to weep.

I’m seriously emotionally invested in that dang furniture. Blood, sweat and tears, man.

8

Ya know, if you want staff attention at IKEA, all you have to do is faceplant after tripping on their uneven exit way, smacking your grand-daughters head into the ground so hard it makes a resounding wack that can be heard accross the parking lot, in the process.

Then multiple staff rush to your assistance. Buying something is another matter entirely.

9

I guess that particle board can get heavy. Imagine how heavy it would have been if it was full sized furnature and not that shitty 3/4 tea sized shit they sell at IKEA. The real bitch will be moving it out on to your lawn in about 18 month to sell your broken, worn out, 3/4 sized IKEA sofa bed for $20. I think IKEA means garage sale fodder in Swedish.

10

Nah G-RAY, the sofabed was full-size, and real birch with only particleboard in some of the moving parts (I don’t like birch, but it is better than particle board, and it wasn’t visible). I don’t like particleboard either - that’s why I go to the bargain section, where the more expensive stuff has been knocked down to half price just because some kid got an easily-removed footprint on it (not my kid, I hasten to mention).

@Steve - I can picture that. Don’t suppose you fncy coming down to help me pack do you, old buddy old pal? We could have a ‘HelpSamMoveDope!’

(I’m getting desparate after using up all my boxes and only amaging to pack half my books, let alone anything else).

One of my friends said that if this sofabed was meant to be mine, I would have found a way. Sofabed philosophists, a step up from the armchair type.

11

Zen and the art of IKEA cupboard assembly.

Ikea makes us all suffer. Yet, I too keep returning. I must be cheap, just like SciFiSam and her ex-GF. :slight_smile:

12

Ever had an IKEA party?

This was in my younger and even stupider days.
First or second own apartment, furnish it with only IKEA stuff, bring all the boxes into the only room. Bring over friends.
Get plastered.
Assemble furniture.
…
…
…
.
Next day. Major hangover. Take all the furniture apart and re-assemble, the right way.

And those assembly instructions are for sissies.

As for the OP - the business idea of IKEA is to cut down as much as possible on staff, letting you do the work, and thereby keeping prices down. I seriously don’t think the staff is allowed to help you, least it sets a precedent.

And remember, founder and sole owner, Ingvar Kamprad, is one of the richest people in the world. He conducts all business meetings standing, so they won’t drag out and consume too much time. He flies coach to save money. And estimates about his wealth range between $10 and $15 billion.

13

Very true. REAL Ikeaists throw away the instructions as the first order of business. Makes for a much more fulfilling experience, plus you get way more familiar with the intricacies of your new furniture when you take something apart for the 7th time to turn that critical fitting 90 degrees the other way.

I undertook my last IKEA project (a friggin’ huge cabinet) while technically bedridden with the flu. As such, I was feverish & bored out of my skull, a very dangerous combination. I didn’t throw away the instructions, but I might as well have, with the level of comprehension I could muster. One useful fact for later use: If you can barely lift the individual components, it is unlikely that you can lift the finished product. Build in situ or be prepared for problems.

14

Very shortly:

  • Ingvar Kamprad was a member of The Swedish Nazi party.
  • IKEA has put many of it partners, mostly early partners, in bankrupcy.
  • There is many furnituremakers in the Nordic countries that does not, not at any cost, work together with IKEA.
    In Finland IKEA made some contracts about a certain type of furniture. The contract included a lot of new techniques. When everything was invented all the works where put in China.
    If You find furniture of birch, with sound knots, that is the furniture made from the toplog of birch. Made in China.

IKEA has no own facilities where it produces furniture. The thing is to put the different producers against each other. And reclamations, reclamations, reclamations.

In the beginning Ingvar Kamprad made very exact contracts with the furniture-producers. Then he find something that was not made according to the description in the Appendix number 4 of the contract. = The result was 1.500 “wrong-done” sofas. = he bought them for half of the price. Or less. = If the furniture maker did not sell, the lawyer that had the bankrupcy at the court, did.

Nice.

P.S. Make Your own furniture. There are very good books about it.

Henry

15

It wasn’t IKEA, but a similar retailer used to have animated adds showing a small to normal sized woman happily receiving, in her hands, the box containing her disassembled bureau and walking off with it like it was a paperweight. These boxes are long and flat, weigh around 80 pounds (I weighed mine), and are extremely awkward and difficult for one person hold or carry. I’m sure there exists a small percentage of exceptionally strong people who have no problem with it, but that’s certainly not the majority.

16

I can see that - but the thing is, this stuff is already put together, it’s not in neat cardboard boxes like everything else. Thus, it simply is physically impossible to get the goods to the till. They must all be sold to large groups of really strong men (actually, they probably are - sold to secondhand furniture dealers who then go and sell the stuff on for a profit).

Henry - I’m not ignoring your post, I just don’t have the time to check the info out. However, I can say for definite that I won’t be making my own furniture - I do like the idea, but aince I’ll be living in flat with no garden, it’s not viable.

17

SciFiSam. I know, that’s why it’s in the bargain dept. IKEA is cheap to start with, in bargains, they practically throw it at you, which is why you have to carry it for yourself. Believe me, I sympathize, since I’ve lugged my own share of heavy stuff from there.

Henry B - considering that Kamprad was 13 when WWII started, and from a rural area where quite a few people had leanings to the far right, I prepared to cut him some slack. He belonged to a youth organization, IIRC. Sweden’s record for WWII isn’t exactly shining with good deeds, not before Stalingrad anyway.
As for the business practices of the company - what can I say? He’s a very good businessman. Very few things are produced in Sweden, but that’s mostly because of labor costs. There are in fact very few furniture makers or industries that do survive, no matter what line of business they’re in. Ericsson make their phones in Malaysia, China and countries like that. Are all Nokia phones made in Finland?
IKEA produces in China, the Baltic states, Turkey, Tunisia, India, Poland and quite a lot of other countries - just like any multinational business.

18

That would have been helpful.

19

Ah, Ikea. My nemisis. My temptress.

When Obsidian and I first moved in together there was a third roomate (who lasted 3 months before slinking back to live with her parents and never paying the rent she owed us, but that’s a rant for another day) who furnished her entire bedroom with Ikea furniture. Obsidian inherited it when she left and if you get her started she tell you just how much she loves it and how much she adores the color of birch wood :rolleyes:

When she bought it we did indeed have an Ikea party ot put it together. Alas, there was not enough alcohol in the apartment to make it seem like fun, though we did invent some entirely original curses and exclaimations of frustration. Are the instructions written in Swedish then translated or do they skip the transaltion all together? And why must they have ten different screws that look identical?

When we moved into our current house we made a trip to the newly opened Ikea closer to where we lived. Let me tell you, even if you get the big heavy furniture onto the trolley, it does not necessarily mean the trip to the register will be an easy one. Two girls, one trolley, half a house of furniture and a bright red room rug we found in the as-is section. Imagine what you will.

Saddest thing is I will return. It’s cheap, it’s close and the plant sections makes me drool.

20

That’s the problem with IKEA pretending to make real furniture–back in the old days, you’d walk into the bargain section with your set of hex wrenches from previous IKEA purchases, select your assembled item, break it down and stack it on the cart, and pile it in your Honda Civic. You can’t do that with a birch ‘n’ particleboard sofabed.

I once fit an IKEA sofa, armchair, coffee table, two tall bookcases, two low bookcases, a friend’s two chairs and cushions, and the friend, in a Toyota Tercel. And I still have the coffee table and bookcases!