My IKEA score and a question

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

OK, So I am an IKEA junkie, I admit it. I love the better quality furniture ( you have to know what to look for), the Eurodesign stuff I can easily incorporate into my weird design almalgam of modern and Arts and Crafts style, the paper napkins ( they have really good ones and I love the name- Spilla:)), the Swedish food in the food court (the cauliflower cheddar soup I had on Saturday was particularly good), and all the rest.

So there I am in the store on Saturday after a sommunications snafu tanked my get together with a friend.
I’m a little pissed that I didn’t get to spend some quality time with them and I am just looking around. I stopped by the kitchen department and corrected a salesman who was spouting some nonsense about Subzero refigerators. (I don’t know why, I just did…)

So I stop by the AS IS section on my way out as all I had found was a cool little architectural print and some paper napkins. As I wander through, I notce a few sheets of laminate stock 2cm by 60cm by about 250cm in the corner behind a display unit. Wedged behind this was a white bag. I pull it out an lo and behold, we have a perfectly good king sized down comforter (Hajarnes or somesuch- Nacho will be by shortly to correct me I’m sure)
I pulled it out of its handy carrying bag with it’s convenient velcro closures which double as a carrying strap and examine it.

There is not a damn thing wrong with it! I mean, not a spot, not a rip, tear, hole, blemish of any kind, not even a loose thread!

Then I check the price.

There is no normal price tag on the item anywhere and no indication it is a As Is item like some of the stuff I have bought there before.

All there is is a little red sticker like you get from a price gun you see in a grocery store. (at least you used to…but that’s another thread)

It reads…$20.00 ???

At about the time I am pondering this, a stock guy comes over and asks me where I got it. I show him and he starts to tell me it is not for sale or some such. I see the As Is supervisor and ask him to verify it. He looks at the price tag and says it is legit. I grab it and run to the register before he changes his mind.

At the register the cashier glances at the tag, scans a code on his register and enters $20. I pay the man and go.

Now for the question - what is there to stop me from taking the little red sticker I have and slapping it on, say… a $200 lamp or something? (besides my damn internal sense of morals…pffft)

I mean there was no verification at all. The sticker wasn’t even on really tight! I am glad I got the new comforter but wonder how they can stay in business…

2

What stops you? Well, I’d say the same thing that stops me when I noticed that tags could easily be switched in a store. You could get caught. Even if you don’t, it’s just wrong.

I’m sure that people get away with switching tags all the time, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of people get caught doing it all the time. I’m generally an honest person, but the thought has popped in my head as well.

Obi-Wan voice
Don’t give in to the dark side, Luke. Uh, Mike.
/Obi-Wan voice

3

And let me add that no matter how early it is, I really ought to check and make sure that it’s MY USERNAME that goes on my posts, and not my SO, who was posting earlier this morning.

Sheesh.

4

Just to clarify, I would not switch tags in a store!
(Oz has scared me out of doing anything even remotely illegal!)

That is why I made sure to ask the supervisor if the tag was legit. I am pretty sure the first guy who tried to take the comforter away had put it there for a buddy or something and I just found it before they got a chance to get it out of the store :wink:
It’s a fine line but the fact that there was a tag on it and it was verified did it for me

ahh, the joys of rationalizing post facto…

5

And we didn’t run into each other? Saturday afternoon I was watching Casablanca, testing sofas, and admiring the beautiful women who shop there and, especially, the Ingrid Bergman clone working in the sofa department. Absolutely love that store–attractive merchandise of fairly good quality at prices that are sometimes preposterously cheap–I’d’ve bought one of those ten-buck floor lamps except the dogs would break the glass globe the first time they knocked it over.

6

Put me down as another Ikea fan. I love my bookcases, which cover an entire wall of my room despite that I got them for $45.

7

I can’t resist their gadgets. Mrs. Pluto knows this and exploits it when she wants a new dresser or something. She gets furniture and I get a new cheese slicer.

And I’ve gone to IKEA just to have lunch at their cafeteria. (I used to work just down the street.) I love Swedish meatballs, but it’s the lingonberry juice that keeps me coming back.

8

I’m buying a Sundnes bed. I would have already if I had a @(&*#@ pickup truck to transport it and the mattress home.
I bought my son a LACK table, triangular & red, for his bedside table. For $4.95!!
I have a POANG chair. I’m buying an EKTORP sofa, with the Fresvik Blue slipcover.

Ahhhh Ikea, how I missed you…

9

Oh Mike, that’s a sweeeet score.
Mmmm…king-size down comforter…sounds cozy. Hey, didja try it out yet?
[sub]If not, can I help when you do?[/sub] :smiley:
Rose

10

Well, I haven’t really gotten to use it much as my a/c died last week and it’s like 85 in my house!

However, I’m driving up to my mom’s tonite to pick up not one but TWO air conditioners - wooo!!! She just got some nice new ones and I can have the old ones. I’m psyched to have an air conditioner in my bedroom for the first time in years.

So I’ll get to snuggle tonite with ice cold air blowing across my flannel covered new comforter…heaven!

Hey dropzone too bad I didn’t see you, that would have been good! You are corrrect as to the high percentage of beautful women there…now if I could only figure out how to go up to them in the store and not look like a psycho…hmmm.

I do not care for their floor lamps though - I don’t like uplights and their downlight floor lamps are all pretty cheesy.

11

One asked if the sofa I was on was comfortable and sat down next to me. If that isn’t an invitation to talk, at least about sofas, I don’t know what is. If I hadn’t had the family with me…I still would’ve chickened out. But you don’t (always) have those encumbrances.

12

I have twelve IKEA items in my apt. A matching coffee table and end table. Pretty good considering I don’t have a car but use a shuttle bus on the weekends from the Port Authourity to the the IKEA in NJ. From the bus I shlump the stuff to a taxi or the subway back to Brooklyn.

I dont’ remember the names but I have

a coffee table and matching end table (glass tops with wheels)
A big book shlef that holds books and my TV and stero stuff
A rotating CD rack
Two DVD towers (these suck by the way)
A table that mounts to the wall and folds down
An entertainment unit that we use in the kitchen
A china cabinet
A set of shelves for the kitchen (our pantry)
A large mirror (cheap but still good and flat)
And my favorite a big blue star that lights up :slight_smile: