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Comment by MrGilbert | Hacker News Reader

> Does US stores also have the ability to pick items up from a warehouse next to their stores? Btw. how is this option also a paid one is beyond me.

That's because every IKEA store is it's own warehouse. Everything you can see is the stock. There is only a small part where you can store stuff. So, instead of you running around and picking stuff from the shelves, an employee has to do it. It's basically a "convenience fee", because it's more expensive for IKEA to collect it for you then you collecting it. I'm not here to judge, though...

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You are right that it is work that needs to be done and should be paid for, but some local companies offer transport plus assembly in the price of IKEA transport only.

Also in Poland availability is different when I try to buy same thing online, check if it's present in local store, or order the same item to be picked up by myself from warehouse next to store.

It's even weirder! Sometimes I order things that are "present in my local store" with transportation, but the actual transportation is made from a central warehouse in different part of the country. So IKEA's "availability" is clearly a concept very different from what client might think.

> So, instead of you running around and picking stuff from the shelves, an employee has to do it.

Here warehouses are usually buildings next to the actual store. So in either case employee has to pick it up from warehouse, but with "pick up from warehouse yourself" option they don't need to transport it to the store next by. I still have to pay for that extra.

It's just weird.

It's a bit complicated to compare the fees of a company like IKEA to the fees of small local companies, in that business sector I'm willing to guess there's a large fraction of non-tax-paying companies with worker unions non-existant etc.

IKEAs online experience is glossy but horribly non-functional, agreed :/ Had that experience in Sweden as well. There is simply no way to buy something which isn't in stock in the local warehouse either, their support actually told me to "try to buy it every day".

Maybe those other companies are just rolling the price into the cost of the goods? I looked here at a competitor and they were both charging AUD$69 for the delivery of a sofa.

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