If we're talking about IKEA store layout, we must mention the classic SCP-3008. Don't forget to open the journal transcription at the bottom, which has the meat of the story.
It’s funny, because their layout makes me spend less. Not because it doesn’t work, but because it makes me absolutely dread going there. There’s no other store I hate going to as much as Ikea because of the pure annoyance of their layout. So I usually don’t.
I guess I'm here to shill for Ikea. I enjoy wandering around the labyrinthian layout (though it was always clear to me this was intentional to make you spend more time in store), and the level of detail is impressive - open a drawer in the showroom and you can buy the organizer and all the utensils within. As I've aged a bit, the spare, modern nordic design of everything isn't quite as appealing as it was to my younger self, but I still like it. I suppose it's the unified design of the entire store experience that works for me. I even enjoy putting the furniture together with their wordless instructions, though I'm told many people find it frustrating. Also, the furniture is cheap to the point of disposability which I consider a double-edged sword. You certainly wont be passing on heirloom Ikea furniture to grandchildren, but it does the job for a bit and you can move on from it without much worry if you need to get rid of it quickly.
Exactly this, if I want a single item I want to go and buy it and walk out of the store with the least friction possible. One coud argue that this is the reason why Ikea are not nearly as succesful as they could have been.
I should also mention their e-commerce business which is beyond terrible. Considering how many years they have had to get this right, this has to be their biggest failure by far.
I’ve been known to look at what I want online, check the store inventory and where it’s located and go in through the exit to get what I want and leave.
We sometimes have no choice but to go to Ikea (in some furniture categories, in this country it's difficult-to-impossible to find options in between Ikea and excessively expensive) but we view it as a necessary evil, and always take the same approach: do a speed-run through the store (taking all shortcuts) until we hit the exact section we need. Sit, recline, feel, examine, decide... and then continue on the the next section.
The only area that sometimes defeats us is the kitchen-ware.
One great part about their layout, however, is the placement of their grocery section — you can bypass everything, zip over there, & get out of the store quite quickly. And the grocery section is really the best part of what they offer, at least in the US, where many flavors, and some items, are all but unavailable elsewhere.
I feel the same way. Its so awful to walk the long narrow paths, that are clogged with slow-walking smelly people. The store in my city is also overheated, so not only is it torturous to walk the store, its also hard to breathe and sweaty.
You don’t have to follow the entire designated route. I just look at the map and use the built-in short cuts. I go when it’s not busy. I get in and get out easily.
As proud as HN commenters are of not falling prey to the tricks that work on normies, this shouldn’t surprise you. IKEA isn’t designing their store to extract maximum value from you.
I generally like IKEA as a concept and furniture source, but am aware that big corporations use all sorts of tricks to get you to like them, use their stuff, not like or use competitors and so on.
But the IKEA hate seems mostly based on snobbery and/or brand awareness. Like those stories about random tech things that shoehorn Apple or Telsa into the title because it gets people to click. And people seem to hate other, poorer people wearing the same clothes as them, using the same chairs etc. It's weirdly self-defeating behaviour.
This article's most interesting bit is the part when they discuss IKEA's focus on low prices:
> The main ingredient of the company’s affordability is a technique called flat packing.
> The company reduces manufacturing, logistics, and fulfillment costs by disassembling items and fitting pieces together in a box as tightly as possible. “We hate air” is a common mantra at Ikea: Every pocket of space is accounted for and minimized.
> “Ikea designs products with manufacturing and transit in mind from the get-go,” said Katelan Cunningham, of the logistics software company Lumi. “They design for the realities of the supply chain, rather than having to make sacrifices for it.”
> Obsessive changes in packaging have saved Ikea millions of dollars:
> When Ikea transitioned its Ektorp sofa to be flat packed, it shrunk its packaging for that product by 50%, reduced its logistics by 7,477 truckloads, and led to a 14% price reduction for consumers.
> Repackaging the Jules office chair by separating the base and the seat saved the company ~$1.4m per year.
I think the IKEA hate is amplified by the experience of being in their stores. I like IKEA products and do go and shop there, but I plan ahead to get in and out in less than half an hour, because after twenty minutes or so I start to get nauseous and feel like I'm having trouble breathing.
It's not because I have strong feelings about the products or the company, or just that I dislike shopping. There aren't any other stores that create the same reaction. Stores filled with products I hate, stores filled with products I love, stores filled with temptations, big stores, little stores, ugly stores, beautiful stores, malls, they're just places to shop, and while they might make me feel bored or irritated after a while, I don't get nauseous. They don't fill me with dread.
I honestly don't know why IKEA stores affect me like that. At first I thought it was anxiety about being disoriented, but it happens to me even in the local store where I know the layout. I have a lot of faith in habituation, mindfulness, and thinking things through as ways of mitigating anxiety, but they haven't helped. The only thing that affects me as viscerally and predictably is my fear of heights, so whatever it is, it feels primal.
A lot of people who criticize Ikea focus on their cheap, MDF products. But Ikea also sells a $2500 couch. And I would argue that Ikea's $2500 couch is a much better value than a $2500 couch elsewhere.
I don't like IKEA furniture because with very few exceptions, it's cheaply made. I want furniture made from durable materials like solid wood that continue to look nice after years of use and not just when it's new.
IKEA can be fine if the pieces you buy don't get touched very often or you buy their rare pieces that are well made.
>But the IKEA hate seems mostly based on snobbery and/or brand awareness.
I have one and only one reason for hating IKEA, before IKEA furniture was delivered fully built, then IKEA disrupted the market by having people build their own stuff, which, among other things, allowed them to be significantly cheaper. Now, at least were I live you can't have furniture delivered pre-built (unless you buy antiques) but you can hire a handyman to come build it for more than the price difference was between unbuilt and built before IKEA came to dominate.
Aside from that I understand text better than I understand graphics so I am always at a disadvantage dealing with IKEA build instructions, having to go through the drawings 4-5 times trying to identify where two pieces look almost exactly the same but have a significant little difference that must be paid attention to - something they could easily do with a single sentence on the relevant pages describing the differences.
Actually then I guess I have two reasons I hate IKEA.
What do you mean "brand awareness?" As in "I hate IKEA because it's IKEA and they're known for cheap furniture?" If that the case, then that's an accurate characterization. Most IKEA furniture is made primarily of particleboard or pine wood, which are both the cheapest materials within their class. I don't know a whole lot about their metal pieces, but I imagine the situation is similar.
> But the IKEA hate seems mostly based on snobbery and/or brand awareness.
That seems off, since IKEA is basically the low-cost alternative to fancy brands. I buy in IKEA for the low-cost, good-enough & functional furniture, but with the understanding that it's definitely fairly low quality.
I think it is the same with articles like this article: people don't like to assign importance to the banal things, so they come up with all kinds of "clever tricks" explanations.
The banal thing is that IKEA is cheap for this level of quality. (and that this quality is good enough for most people).
> once an Ikea product hits the shelves, the company is militant about maintaining, or even reducing, its retail price
aka Jeff Bozos "your margin is my opportunity".
Being able to run the company with low margins are the best defence against competition.
One thing that is nice about IKEA is since everything is pretty standardized you can create mashups that were never intended. For example, they sell a bathroom vanity on little 3 in legs - but the legs are the same as the bookcase legs elsewhere in the store - which are also available in 6 inch. So if you want a higher vanity you can easily do it.
But other stores have caught on to flatpack shipping - you can get solid wood dressers for example from Target shipped as a flatpack and easiesh to assemble (have a power screwdriver or drill torqued down low).
The problem is some of the things you have no idea of the durability until you’ve used it.
The modular aspect of Ikea pieces is a big deal for me because I relocate often for work and have a growing family. We have a sectional sofa that we can turn around depending on what best fits a new space, and we have a sofa with a chaise lounge that we can turn into a straight sofa given an extra cushion and set of covers. Of course, all covers are removable so we can wash them in our machines, and easily change the color to better go with a new space. There are even many unofficial vendors of Ikea sofa covers.
The HEJNE shelves have gone done drastically in quality. Picked up a new version ~3 years ago. Flimsy, wood split while assembling due to flaws. Just re-assembled my mother-in-law's older version. Tighter grain, thicker wood, just more stable.
The IVAR shelves have also started cheaping out. The shelving support rails/clips/whatever were metal and are now plastic. Perhaps they're strong enough but our old version has been going strong since the mid-90s under heavy use. Glue-lam is a strong material.
IVAR is fine if you screw it to the wall.
Yeah, the wire crosses are fairly wobbly for narrow setups, but with a little attention to linkage theory/movement, they are far from bad at their job of being shelving.
One great addition is to have one or two columns contain a cabinet-unit, who's wooden back plate provides a lot of reinforcement/stability. For non-wall-mounted setups, one mostly just has to prevent sideways loads that aim to collapse the parallelogram structure.
This is all true, and obviously so. But the flip side is that IKEA does have good stuff at good prices, and they have pretty much everything you need to furnish and equip a home. Walking the entire IKEA maze is still faster than visiting all the separate retailers you would otherwise need to visit, and within the same budget you're likely to get higher quality at IKEA. I'm not saying that their quality is very high, but it's usually at least adequate which is better than what you usually get at lower-end prices at other retailers where quality nowadays is a big crap-shoot and half of all items break after the first few uses.
When I lived in a place that had IKEA stores I dreaded going there, but I never regretted it. Now I live where there aren't any, and I rather miss them.
You don't need to "walk the IKEA maze" if you know your local store. I used to live near the one in south London, and knew all the shortcuts - the first was to walk through a passage by the cafe, then through a set of doors directly opposite, and so on. They're not forbidden to customers, just not obvious because they want you to walk the whole way around. There's definitely something that happens to most people when they walk into an IKEA, as if their conscious mind disconnects and they just blandly obey the behavioural hints in store, like arrows on the floor. It reminds me a bit of slaughterhouses, where the object is to keep the animals as calm as possible right up until the moment that they're killed.
They have cheap products at cheap prices. Nothing wrong with that. There's a huge market for disposable chipboard furniture.
But they aren't really any cheaper than the competition when you compare like for like. As soon as you get to real wood they're usually pretty comparable to the rest of the market.
And was just saying this to my wife the other day: explains why they seem to have avoided moving with any effort to online shopping, even in the last two years of COVID lockdowns. With online shopping they can't really push you through a maze of junk before you get to the checkout.
Around here you can buy things online from IKEA but they make the shipping and delivery a pain and more expensive than their competition.
While it's "impulsive buys", they are at least for me still intentional. I go to IKEA when I know I need new stuff, but without explicitly listing all the small stuff. I know I will go through every department, and then see whatever it is I need on the way.
I feel like this is twisting numbers. The fact that 60% are "impuls buys" doesn't mean you are "tricked into buying more". If someone is renovating or moving, then they might go to Ikea to find a new bed or a new sofa, and then find they also need a sofa table, or bed table that they had not planned to buy. This is typically what we do, we don't make a full list of what we need ahead of time, we know some major parts, and then we browse and pick up more things we need. That might mean that 60% of what we buy wasn't "planned" but we weren't tricked into buying more stuff, we just figured out what we wanted along the way.
Naturally this makes the layout of Ikea important, because if you never go through the lighting department, you're not going to remember that you'd actually been wanting a desklamp and pick one out. But this isn't some sort of clever psychological hack thats tricking you into buying a lamp you don't need.
When I see videos of people creating custom made tables from a large slab of oak and some resin pour, it looks awesome, but probably IKEA could furnish your whole house using the same amount of wood and still cost less. IKEA is a blessing for this planet.
As for self-assembled stuff perceived to be more valuable, I also think it is nice to know that you can assemble, and more importantly, disassemble it yourself. It's more repairable (IKEA sells spare parts as well), makes moving easier, and also allows you to "hack" IKEA products: https://ikeahackers.net/
but probably IKEA could furnish your whole house using the same amount of wood and still cost less. IKEA is a blessing for this planet.
Except that IKEA product last far shorter. We moved frequently due to being in academia, Billy bookshelves are often pretty much worn-out after disassembling and assembling them 2-3 times. We had IKEA sofas (not the cheapest models) that would wear out in 3-5 years. The surface of our relatively expensive IKEA dining table cracked open twice. They replaced it, no questions asked, but their quality is quite mediocre.
Before IKEA, in The Netherlands Lundia bookshelves were popular. They were made of massive wood and designed to be easy to assemble/disassemble. They would often last and be passed between generations. I knew fellow students who had 30 year old Lundia bookshelves that were passed on from their parents and moved from house to house and then from student home to student home.
Besides that, I really hate shopping at Ikea. It's far too chaotic and annoying. (The trick is going on weekdays and knowing all the shortcuts.)
Going to IKEA drives me absolutely bonkers. I went with my son to buy a few things, ended up going through their amazingly frustrating maze jam packed with people 3 times and finally gave up. Wanted to compare a few different storage solutions to each other but it was maddening trying to get back and forth between a few different sections and trying to remember what was where sucked. I ended up buying much less than we wanted and went home and my wife was mad at me. I am not going anymore.
The article was a relatively entertaining description of some psychological but for me there’s a more important reason I buy more than in planned for, IKEA’s design is quite good.
I fall into the “IKEA as Disneyland” camp. For me there’s tons of inspiration from their designs and layouts that I wouldn’t have thought about on my own —- this is particularly true for organization and maximizing utility in small spaces.
Most people are not professional interior designers so it helps to draw inspiration from professionals. If left on their own the things people “think they need” is far less than the things they actually need — people need more, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not talking about over the top consumerism or aimlessly amassing stuff. I’m certain this is a lot of appeal to shows on HGTV. You see how they design something similar to your house then steal the ideas.
I’m also attracted to their minimalistic design. Simple designs and neutral colors never seems to go out of style and blend well with everything. Given IKEAs diversity the same products are sold around the world —- Europe, Japan, America —- so they need a timeless and borderless approach. I’ve probably bought far less from IKEA because I never feel the design is old.
I also like the little stories about they inspiration for design. The article mentions how cheap product make IKEA seems like a bargain but even the cheap stuff is well thought out. One designer commented that the plush toys don’t have plastic eyes, they are all stitched / embroidered. The designer realized this after seeing a child with a stuffed animal that only had one eye. The designer thought no child’s toy should eyeless and fixed try problem.
IKEA isn’t the only store where good design sells products. Muji is another. I almost always walk out of there buying more than planned. I think it’s easy to attribute this to psychological manipulation but sometimes making a better product and demonstrating how he utility is the real secret sauce.
For people interested in design, particularly the theory side, check out the work by Kenya Hara, the design director for Muji.
I think this is a pretty well known hack but the durability of IKEA furniture increases dramatically with one simple trick, which is to glue everything together when you assemble it.
Just get a bottle of very good wood glue like Titebond III and apply it to every surface that touches another surface while you’re putting it together and most of the shaky fall apart if you lean on it qualities can be eliminated.
We have IKEA in HK. I don’t understand how anybody can claim that its layout is maze-like. It is, to the contrary, expressly linear, with some shortcuts if you really want to skip some sections. Every section is also clearly labeled and you know exactly where you are at.
More so than IKEA, the store that makes me buy a lot more than I planned on is Costco.
It also uses the cheap food trick ($1.50 hot dog, $5 rotisserie chicken) as well.
I tell myself I am going to run in and get one thing, but I come out with my shopping cart full.
Because Costco changes what they carry on a regular basis as well as the promotions, whenever you see a sale, you want to immediately grab a bunch of stuff.
Also add its super friendly return policies and you are thinking “If I don’t like it, I can always just bring it back”.
IKEA is essentially a bank, as a friend explained to me. They pay suppliers late and meanwhile get paid for selling the furniture made from the supplied parts.
Personally I'm a big fan of their simple designs and some of the style, and a regular buyer of book shelves.
I have always called the inside of an Ikea store intestines. Mainly because the make sure that you mostly have to go past everything to find the thing you want.
Ikea maximises surface area of things for sale as you move through. The human gut uses the same trick to maximise getting food into you blood via villi.
* As a side note, I know that Ikea has shortcuts. Thank fuck! But if you walk through the store wandering aimlessly following everyone else, you are being maximised.
I ordered a desk online. The previous time I ordered something from IKEA, I received a bazillion messages from them on the day of delivery.
This time, I received one message: the desk was being picked up. After that: total silence. At the end of the day, I called to ask what's up. Apparently they didn't have the desks, and it would be months until they would be back in stock.
What I learned: If you don't get stalked about the status of your delivery, you don't need to stay at home. You're not getting it.
What I did: told them I'd wait for the next delivery, and expressed my annoyance. Got a coupon because of that, then cancelled. I couldn't help myself: if they play tricks on me, I have to return the favour.
I recently tried to order a chair (it was in stock when I ordered).
On the delivery day I got delivered two other items in the same order and later I got a call about how they couldn't deliver the chair because it out of stock.
Got a full refund for the chair price (without any action on my part), a coupon for smaaaal amount and a 1/3rd part of the delivery fare as a 'compensation'.
Never had any problems with IKEA furniture. Yes, they're cheap, but honestly what do I expect from a €30 bookcase? I have four LAIVAs, two filled with books and two with electronic parts drawers and they're perfect for size constrained rooms. Their office chairs are good albeit cheap, although harder suspensions for bigfoot-sized humans like me would be welcome. Their branded batteries, USB chargers/power supplies and light bulbs are also surprisingly very good and durable for the price, and some of the food is delicious (don't miss the horseradish "sas peparrot" sauce with their meatballs).
The only moment I deeply hated them was when they sent a cease and desist letter to the owner of ikeahackers.net, a site where people send their mods of IKEA furniture, therefore it helps sales, but the stupidity of copyright lawyers never ceases to amaze us. Luckily they reached an agreement, and the site is still active.
About the tricks, I'm sure everyone employs some; from grocery stores keeping more expensive stuff at easier to reach heights to others promoting a few products at discounted price while most of the others are inflated, so one gets there and buys everything, including more expensive ones, anyway because they know that driving to another store would be a much bigger nuisance.
I wish there was a book on how to defend ourselves against all those marketing tactics, that is, one written for common people, not for salesmen.
Start by saying that i have a lot of IKEA stuff in my home: glasses, towels, plates, lamps.
But IKEA has had a devastating effect in two ways:
1. Wherever they’ve established themselves, they’ve devastated the ‘middle’ ground of quality-made furniture. In England before IKEA there used to be an immense choice of sofa and furniture makers, many of them producing really well-designed and reasonably priced items, like HABITAT for instance (which significantly was bought by IKEA sometime in the 90s). The large number of choices like this, but even other smaller-scale designers get wiped-out by IKEA’s steamroller.
2. The other problem has always been the way IKEA will copy a design from a smaller designer, and wipe them out that way. These days they’re a bit smarter about doing this, and instead of copying designs and getting the internet backlash they’d suffer nowadays, they partner with cool designers (like Danish Hay) and get ‘cred’ instead.
So even though we probably save some money in the short term, we’ve lost a flourishing landscape of smaller and more diverse, and more local alternatives.
I love the "adult disney world" analogy. IKEA gets a lot of (well deserved, I guess) hate in my circles, but I love it. It reminds me of my childhood, going there with my mom, eating meatballs and assembling the furniture in the afternoon. Plus you can walk through the showroom and imagine all the different kind of paths your life might play out.
[+] [-] ufo|4 years ago|reply
https://the-scp.foundation/object/scp-3008
[+] [-] b1476|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Semaphor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hotpotamus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dazc|4 years ago|reply
I should also mention their e-commerce business which is beyond terrible. Considering how many years they have had to get this right, this has to be their biggest failure by far.
[+] [-] hk1337|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mft_|4 years ago|reply
We sometimes have no choice but to go to Ikea (in some furniture categories, in this country it's difficult-to-impossible to find options in between Ikea and excessively expensive) but we view it as a necessary evil, and always take the same approach: do a speed-run through the store (taking all shortcuts) until we hit the exact section we need. Sit, recline, feel, examine, decide... and then continue on the the next section.
The only area that sometimes defeats us is the kitchen-ware.
[+] [-] flenserboy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jebronie|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] drivers99|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulcole|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|4 years ago|reply
But the IKEA hate seems mostly based on snobbery and/or brand awareness. Like those stories about random tech things that shoehorn Apple or Telsa into the title because it gets people to click. And people seem to hate other, poorer people wearing the same clothes as them, using the same chairs etc. It's weirdly self-defeating behaviour.
This article's most interesting bit is the part when they discuss IKEA's focus on low prices:
> The main ingredient of the company’s affordability is a technique called flat packing.
> The company reduces manufacturing, logistics, and fulfillment costs by disassembling items and fitting pieces together in a box as tightly as possible. “We hate air” is a common mantra at Ikea: Every pocket of space is accounted for and minimized.
> “Ikea designs products with manufacturing and transit in mind from the get-go,” said Katelan Cunningham, of the logistics software company Lumi. “They design for the realities of the supply chain, rather than having to make sacrifices for it.”
> Obsessive changes in packaging have saved Ikea millions of dollars:
> When Ikea transitioned its Ektorp sofa to be flat packed, it shrunk its packaging for that product by 50%, reduced its logistics by 7,477 truckloads, and led to a 14% price reduction for consumers. > Repackaging the Jules office chair by separating the base and the seat saved the company ~$1.4m per year.
[+] [-] dkarl|4 years ago|reply
It's not because I have strong feelings about the products or the company, or just that I dislike shopping. There aren't any other stores that create the same reaction. Stores filled with products I hate, stores filled with products I love, stores filled with temptations, big stores, little stores, ugly stores, beautiful stores, malls, they're just places to shop, and while they might make me feel bored or irritated after a while, I don't get nauseous. They don't fill me with dread.
I honestly don't know why IKEA stores affect me like that. At first I thought it was anxiety about being disoriented, but it happens to me even in the local store where I know the layout. I have a lot of faith in habituation, mindfulness, and thinking things through as ways of mitigating anxiety, but they haven't helped. The only thing that affects me as viscerally and predictably is my fear of heights, so whatever it is, it feels primal.
[+] [-] legitster|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] user3939382|4 years ago|reply
I don't like IKEA furniture because with very few exceptions, it's cheaply made. I want furniture made from durable materials like solid wood that continue to look nice after years of use and not just when it's new.
IKEA can be fine if the pieces you buy don't get touched very often or you buy their rare pieces that are well made.
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|4 years ago|reply
I have one and only one reason for hating IKEA, before IKEA furniture was delivered fully built, then IKEA disrupted the market by having people build their own stuff, which, among other things, allowed them to be significantly cheaper. Now, at least were I live you can't have furniture delivered pre-built (unless you buy antiques) but you can hire a handyman to come build it for more than the price difference was between unbuilt and built before IKEA came to dominate.
Aside from that I understand text better than I understand graphics so I am always at a disadvantage dealing with IKEA build instructions, having to go through the drawings 4-5 times trying to identify where two pieces look almost exactly the same but have a significant little difference that must be paid attention to - something they could easily do with a single sentence on the relevant pages describing the differences.
Actually then I guess I have two reasons I hate IKEA.
[+] [-] Xelbair|4 years ago|reply
what? Ikea was always the cheap brand, not expensive one, nor premium one - there is no snobbery attached to it.
[+] [-] actually_a_dog|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjav|4 years ago|reply
That seems off, since IKEA is basically the low-cost alternative to fancy brands. I buy in IKEA for the low-cost, good-enough & functional furniture, but with the understanding that it's definitely fairly low quality.
[+] [-] silvestrov|4 years ago|reply
The banal thing is that IKEA is cheap for this level of quality. (and that this quality is good enough for most people).
> once an Ikea product hits the shelves, the company is militant about maintaining, or even reducing, its retail price
aka Jeff Bozos "your margin is my opportunity".
Being able to run the company with low margins are the best defence against competition.
[+] [-] narag|4 years ago|reply
I don't hate them, on the contrary I'm a regular customer that doesn't mind assembling.
I dislike the "maze", yes I know the shortcuts, but I can't help wondering what would happen in an emergency.
[+] [-] bombcar|4 years ago|reply
But other stores have caught on to flatpack shipping - you can get solid wood dressers for example from Target shipped as a flatpack and easiesh to assemble (have a power screwdriver or drill torqued down low).
The problem is some of the things you have no idea of the durability until you’ve used it.
For example this is good: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/hejne-4-section-shelving-unit-s... especially for the price (accommodates rack units!) but this is an absolute pain in the arse https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/ivar-system-11703/ to get working correctly (I threw it away and burned the rest after the third time shelves bounced and collapsed).
I ended up replacing most of it with wire shelving from Uline.
[+] [-] warner25|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roter|4 years ago|reply
The IVAR shelves have also started cheaping out. The shelving support rails/clips/whatever were metal and are now plastic. Perhaps they're strong enough but our old version has been going strong since the mid-90s under heavy use. Glue-lam is a strong material.
We are in our 50s and live like students...
[+] [-] namibj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbotz|4 years ago|reply
When I lived in a place that had IKEA stores I dreaded going there, but I never regretted it. Now I live where there aren't any, and I rather miss them.
[+] [-] frereubu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sidewndr46|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|4 years ago|reply
But they aren't really any cheaper than the competition when you compare like for like. As soon as you get to real wood they're usually pretty comparable to the rest of the market.
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|4 years ago|reply
Around here you can buy things online from IKEA but they make the shipping and delivery a pain and more expensive than their competition.
[+] [-] matsemann|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jVinc|4 years ago|reply
Naturally this makes the layout of Ikea important, because if you never go through the lighting department, you're not going to remember that you'd actually been wanting a desklamp and pick one out. But this isn't some sort of clever psychological hack thats tricking you into buying a lamp you don't need.
[+] [-] gsliepen|4 years ago|reply
As for self-assembled stuff perceived to be more valuable, I also think it is nice to know that you can assemble, and more importantly, disassemble it yourself. It's more repairable (IKEA sells spare parts as well), makes moving easier, and also allows you to "hack" IKEA products: https://ikeahackers.net/
[+] [-] microtonal|4 years ago|reply
Except that IKEA product last far shorter. We moved frequently due to being in academia, Billy bookshelves are often pretty much worn-out after disassembling and assembling them 2-3 times. We had IKEA sofas (not the cheapest models) that would wear out in 3-5 years. The surface of our relatively expensive IKEA dining table cracked open twice. They replaced it, no questions asked, but their quality is quite mediocre.
Before IKEA, in The Netherlands Lundia bookshelves were popular. They were made of massive wood and designed to be easy to assemble/disassemble. They would often last and be passed between generations. I knew fellow students who had 30 year old Lundia bookshelves that were passed on from their parents and moved from house to house and then from student home to student home.
Besides that, I really hate shopping at Ikea. It's far too chaotic and annoying. (The trick is going on weekdays and knowing all the shortcuts.)
[+] [-] dumbfounder|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lupire|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wirthjason|4 years ago|reply
I fall into the “IKEA as Disneyland” camp. For me there’s tons of inspiration from their designs and layouts that I wouldn’t have thought about on my own —- this is particularly true for organization and maximizing utility in small spaces.
Most people are not professional interior designers so it helps to draw inspiration from professionals. If left on their own the things people “think they need” is far less than the things they actually need — people need more, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not talking about over the top consumerism or aimlessly amassing stuff. I’m certain this is a lot of appeal to shows on HGTV. You see how they design something similar to your house then steal the ideas.
I’m also attracted to their minimalistic design. Simple designs and neutral colors never seems to go out of style and blend well with everything. Given IKEAs diversity the same products are sold around the world —- Europe, Japan, America —- so they need a timeless and borderless approach. I’ve probably bought far less from IKEA because I never feel the design is old.
I also like the little stories about they inspiration for design. The article mentions how cheap product make IKEA seems like a bargain but even the cheap stuff is well thought out. One designer commented that the plush toys don’t have plastic eyes, they are all stitched / embroidered. The designer realized this after seeing a child with a stuffed animal that only had one eye. The designer thought no child’s toy should eyeless and fixed try problem.
IKEA isn’t the only store where good design sells products. Muji is another. I almost always walk out of there buying more than planned. I think it’s easy to attribute this to psychological manipulation but sometimes making a better product and demonstrating how he utility is the real secret sauce.
For people interested in design, particularly the theory side, check out the work by Kenya Hara, the design director for Muji.
[+] [-] CPLX|4 years ago|reply
Just get a bottle of very good wood glue like Titebond III and apply it to every surface that touches another surface while you’re putting it together and most of the shaky fall apart if you lean on it qualities can be eliminated.
[+] [-] k_sze|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|4 years ago|reply
It also uses the cheap food trick ($1.50 hot dog, $5 rotisserie chicken) as well.
I tell myself I am going to run in and get one thing, but I come out with my shopping cart full.
Because Costco changes what they carry on a regular basis as well as the promotions, whenever you see a sale, you want to immediately grab a bunch of stuff.
Also add its super friendly return policies and you are thinking “If I don’t like it, I can always just bring it back”.
[+] [-] jll29|4 years ago|reply
Personally I'm a big fan of their simple designs and some of the style, and a regular buyer of book shelves.
[+] [-] accountofme|4 years ago|reply
Ikea maximises surface area of things for sale as you move through. The human gut uses the same trick to maximise getting food into you blood via villi.
* As a side note, I know that Ikea has shortcuts. Thank fuck! But if you walk through the store wandering aimlessly following everyone else, you are being maximised.
[+] [-] harryvederci|4 years ago|reply
I ordered a desk online. The previous time I ordered something from IKEA, I received a bazillion messages from them on the day of delivery.
This time, I received one message: the desk was being picked up. After that: total silence. At the end of the day, I called to ask what's up. Apparently they didn't have the desks, and it would be months until they would be back in stock.
What I learned: If you don't get stalked about the status of your delivery, you don't need to stay at home. You're not getting it.
What I did: told them I'd wait for the next delivery, and expressed my annoyance. Got a coupon because of that, then cancelled. I couldn't help myself: if they play tricks on me, I have to return the favour.
[+] [-] justsomehnguy|4 years ago|reply
I recently tried to order a chair (it was in stock when I ordered).
On the delivery day I got delivered two other items in the same order and later I got a call about how they couldn't deliver the chair because it out of stock.
Got a full refund for the chair price (without any action on my part), a coupon for smaaaal amount and a 1/3rd part of the delivery fare as a 'compensation'.
[+] [-] squarefoot|4 years ago|reply
About the tricks, I'm sure everyone employs some; from grocery stores keeping more expensive stuff at easier to reach heights to others promoting a few products at discounted price while most of the others are inflated, so one gets there and buys everything, including more expensive ones, anyway because they know that driving to another store would be a much bigger nuisance. I wish there was a book on how to defend ourselves against all those marketing tactics, that is, one written for common people, not for salesmen.
[+] [-] null_object|4 years ago|reply
But IKEA has had a devastating effect in two ways:
1. Wherever they’ve established themselves, they’ve devastated the ‘middle’ ground of quality-made furniture. In England before IKEA there used to be an immense choice of sofa and furniture makers, many of them producing really well-designed and reasonably priced items, like HABITAT for instance (which significantly was bought by IKEA sometime in the 90s). The large number of choices like this, but even other smaller-scale designers get wiped-out by IKEA’s steamroller.
2. The other problem has always been the way IKEA will copy a design from a smaller designer, and wipe them out that way. These days they’re a bit smarter about doing this, and instead of copying designs and getting the internet backlash they’d suffer nowadays, they partner with cool designers (like Danish Hay) and get ‘cred’ instead.
So even though we probably save some money in the short term, we’ve lost a flourishing landscape of smaller and more diverse, and more local alternatives.
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mahathu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smilespray|4 years ago|reply