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Comment by iambateman | Hacker News Reader

“IKEA uses war psychology – confusion, camouflage, and attrition – to wear down and coerce shoppers, starting with the store layout.”

Evidently the author does not like IKEA…which is perfectly fine. They are free to go to Bed Bath & Beyond.

But to offer a counter perspective…I like IKEA. Sometimes we travel 90 minutes just to go hang out there and shop. It’s kinda fun and interesting and weird in a way that makes it different from ordinary shopping.

I’m not saying that they’re the world’s most virtuous company or should be exempt from criticism, just that it’s odd to accuse them of using war psychology to beat their customers into submission when a _lot_ of people really enjoy the experience.

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I also love IKEA, as it’s a great place to take my young wheelchair using daughter to get practice. IKEA is one of the most wheelchair accessible places we’ve been to. We often see other people in wheelchairs as well, I think precisely because they take accessibility seriously. She’ll exclaim “like me! Like me!” And propel herself over and compliment anyone in a wheelchair on their dress or ask them about their prosthetic leg, which so far people tend to be very kind and gracious to a little girl coming up and asking them personal questions.

It’s also great because she can basically “do all the activities” at IKEA, she can see all the furniture, go into all the display rooms, and even the dining area is wide open and accessible.

She just turned four and her favorite part is the “turbo boosts” where I give her a good push and she careens down the aisles at IKEA, using her brakes to stop herself. Braking is a super important skill for a little girl in a wheelie!

This is one of the most wholesome and touching messages I've read here in a long time, to the point that I created an account just for this useless reply. You sound like a wonderful parent, and I've just gained a newfound appreciation for IKEA after reading this. I wish you and your daughter the best.

This is so wholesome and I love it!!

As someone who lives close to an Ikea store and can got here spontaneously it's kind of fun to observe people there. A lot of people have to travel quite a bit to visit the store as you say, so when they go make sure to try to get everything they need. Couple this with a couple of hungry kids and you have recipe for disaster. In my experience things usually start to fall apart around the bedlinen section. By the bathroom section couples are often full passive aggressive towards each other. Thankfully the flower section soon follows and appear to pick people up so they can make it through the registers.

Your description remineded me of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33201033

I wonder what the split is; how many of the population find it exhausting vs enriching.

The “war psychology” resonates with me, but I can’t stand spending time in an IKEA store; the experience is draining and frustrating, while everything they sell is disposable, cheap, off-gassing melamine and fiberboard.

It breaks quickly, and you find yourself back at IKEA buying another cheap furniture piece.

When I was young and poor, I hated IKEA even more after wasting time and hard-earned money there.

Instead, I started buying used, high-quality furniture, made of natural materials, from second-hand furniture stores.

Just as affordable, more durable, more enjoyable to own, and I was able to sell/give it on when I was less poor.

> The “war psychology” resonates with me, but I can’t stand spending time in an IKEA store; the experience is draining and frustrating, while everything they sell is disposable, cheap, off-gassing melamine and fiberboard.

Ikea sells plenty of real solid wood products, but even their mid-tier chip board book shelves last.

Ikea's light fixtures are also a good deal. Bonus that they don't use soldered in LED lights, which I've seen many cheap and even mid priced light fixtures starting to do.

Ikea's signature POÄNG chair, those things last forever.

Ikea is also often the only place that sells furniture with a clean look. At least in the Pacific NW of the US, my choices for furniture shopping are:

1. Ikea, cheap, quality ranging from meh to decent.

2. Macy's Home store and other of the ilk, horribly ugly furniture with quality ranging from decent to not too bad.

3. HOLY SHIT expensive furniture stores selling good looking stuff like CB2.

4. LOLWTFBBQ expensive furniture stores like restoration hardware, selling ugly ass shit that is of quality ranging from "not too bad" to "pretty good."

Last time I visited Vancouver BC I was very jealous of their furniture stores. :(

> 4. LOLWTFBBQ expensive furniture stores like restoration hardware, selling ugly ass shit that is of quality ranging from "not too bad" to "pretty good."

My theory is there is some kind of fashion season progression for furniture, perhaps based on stuff they use on reality shows or trendy waiting rooms or something. That is the "cutting edge" designs (made nowhere particularly noteworthy and using nothing special in terms of materials) at repugnant prices.

Came here to say the same thing, POÄNG and a few other products from IKEA are great.

It's actually a shame they don't focus more on perfecting their offerings.

Some items get redesigned too often. Especially the melamine off-gassing stuff referred to by the parent post.

> Especially the melamine off-gassing stuff referred to by the parent post.

Agreed, last drawer I bought from them I shoved activated charcoal bags in for over a week and left the drawers open, eventually they stopped smelling.

Also the quality of their press board / chip board has dropped dramatically over the years. 20 years ago items in the Malm line were a lot heavier and could survive multiple moves. Last time I picked up a piece of a Malm bed, it felt nearly hollow.

IMO there's little that approaches Ikea quality+value for lighting. I went all in on Hue way back when and none of it's lasted (some bulbs died within a couple years), and the current app is garbage. A couple years ago I bought a Kichler fixture for roughly double what the nearest Ikea equivalent cost and… yikes. The build quality was not great and the replacement wasn't a whole lot better. Installation was far more fiddly than anything I've bought from Ikea.

I've been looking at Ikea for kitchen cabinets and while there are some shops that'll do comparable quality Ikea has most of them beat on price, drawer hardware, and ease of discovery. I was thumbing through one catalog that had a whole formula to figure out how much your cabinet would cost. With Ikea the prices are right there and they're generally lower than comparable quality RTA stuff from other brands. Plus the warranty is better and installation is less fiddly.

There's just not a lot out there that's just a little bit better than Ikea. There's Ikea and then there's high end stuff.

I had a consulting job where I moved every few years and even their cheapest stuff survived multiple interstate moves, some with disassembly/assembly. I'd contrast it with the lower volume stores with higher margins and constantly changing designs: Ikea stuff has to work because the margins are lower and the volume is higher : a mistake/recall would cost them more.

The good part about moving your ikea furniture between continents, as I have done, is that when the wheel on your desk chair breaks you can go to your nearest ikea and ask for another!

Well, sometimes at least: We moved from Asia (Singapore) to Europe, and while waiting for our movers to arrive, we checked the childrens bedroom in the new house against the dimensions of their beds _looked up on the European IKEA site_: The bed would not fit.

When the movers came with our container, I checked the dimensions on the actual IKEA bed we had bought in Singapore: It was smaller than the European version, and fit perfectly into the bedroom.

Interesting!

That particular chair I had was the same everywhere. I moved mine from Australia to the UK and got the new wheel there. Pretty sure it’s the same globally as I went to Shenzhen to visit a supplier a few years later and noticed the boardroom had very familiar seating!

(It was a ‘Markus’)

As a counter anecdote, nothing I have bought in IKEA has broken. They are not family heirloom pieces but I'm confident I'll be able to sell/give away all of them in some online marketplace when the time comes.

As a counter counter anecdote, I bought a wooden stool in IKEA, and it was a piece of junk that couldn't withstand any shear force.

I liked your comment, but it disappointed a bit as I was waiting to hear about the quality of IKEA countertops.

When my wife and I were in our 20s we bought an IKEA countertop and quite liked it. It lasted the few years we lived in that house and is better than the countertop we have in our much more expensive house that we haven’t yet remodeled. It wasn’t magic countertop but it was perfectly serviceable and relatively easy to install.

Thanks, that's the counter anecdote I came to HN for.

All of my Ikea products have lasted forever, and my bed is actually better after the last move because the mover replaced some of the parts for me.

It definitely depends on the product. I had an early version of the MALMO bed that was absolute trash. It broke within a year of normal use.

Things like tables I've generally felt to be of decent quality. Their kitchen fittings tend to be good enough quality to make it through their 10 year warranty.

Actually, speaking of warranties, I was just in an Ikea store in The Netherlands after moving here from the USA, and there was a large sign on the wall in the couch section proclaiming the 10 year warranty on all of their couches. So it seems they are trying to make some key products last.

I also bought some cheap plastic shelves with wheels for my new tiny Dutch bathroom. I don't expect the wheels to still roll in a year. I bought what I think it supposed to be a wire mesh "filing cabinet" (it's tiny!) to use as shoe storage in the entry way and I expect it to start rusting next year. But it was €20 and I just made an international move and money is tight atm.

You get what you pay for I think. $40 bookshelves? Not making it through a move. This model[0] however, will likely hold up fine. It looked sturdy when I saw it in the store last week.

0: https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/hemnes-bookcase-red-stained-lig...

They don't hold up fine. I bought some Hemnes when I moved a few years ago. One frame broke when I loaded it up with hardbacks. The sides are incredibly thin - purely decorative with no structural support. The shelf pins are just about strong enough to hold a collection as long as you don't keep pulling books off the shelf to read them.

They're not a cheap option, considering. I was looking at them a few weeks ago thinking I should either have spent more on something more robust or looked at options elsewhere.

As for IKEA's store plan, I've long suspected the really cheap products are loss leaders to get people into the stores. The majority of products - like Hemnes - are far more expensive but still budget-or-just-over quality.

And there are always a few items, like premium persian rugs, which are far more expensive than equivalents elsewhere. I expect IKEA makes most of its money from higher margins on the just-over products.

Fair enough. I haven't purchased one, but the thicker legs and trim pieces at least make it _appear_ sturdier.

The wife wanted a bookshelf so we bought a Billy for €40. I was watching a couple YouTube videos about making them a bit sturdier with glue and extra nails, so I'll probably take a stab at that this weekend when I assemble it.

Re: loss leaders, of course! They serve a €1 breakfast (with "free" coffee if you're a member, which is also free) at the store nearest me. It's an egg, cheese, and a small bread roll. Not much, but I'm paying at least €1 for bread at the local café to go with my €3 latte. The cube shelves are ridiculously cheap and really quite sturdy for most models but you pay out the nose for the cloth cubes to slot into the shelf. Want a door and a drawer to fit in one cube? That'll be half the price of the full shelf.

I think the other half of the problem here is an ignorance of the business model and marketing by consumers. If you expect a €20 shelf to last forever, you're in for a bad time. If you're a college student or a young family starting out in life and need some stuff to get through the next few years, Ikea is probably a decent option.

I went looking for the rated capacity of the shelves and found this:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/newsroom/corporate-news/safety-an...

Ikea is providing longer, presumably stronger, pins free of charge.

In any case the 48 cm wide unit is listed as having a 15 kg limit per shelf, the 89 cm wide units are rated at 30 kg. Fifteen kilos of hardback books is potentially a lot less than one might expect.

> You get what you pay for I think. $40 bookshelves? Not making it through a move

I'm sitting next to a Billy that's nearly 2 decades and 4 moves old.

This raises an obvious question: if you hate the experience and you hate the products, then why are you at the store?

I’ve helped some friends shop there, since I drive a pickup.

Just wait for them at the caffeteria?

When the local IKEA was opened, they made you go all the way through expo labyrinth just to get to cafeteria and there was even a security guard making sure nobody takes the obviously planned in shortcut from the beginning of expo hall to cafeteria.

They did open up the shortcut after a few months though.

Did you try to go directly to the cafeteria and were refused? I'd bet the security guard was there to prevent people walking backwards through the store and stealing, though I assume they purposefully placed him in an area to make people think they couldn't walk directly to the cafeteria.

Yes, he explained that the passage there is only open during emergencies or something like that.

I wonder what it feels like to be the human equivalent of a door.

The answer to this is always "well, this is an emergency for me, feel free to call the police if you mind me going to the cafeteria".

Good question. Sometimes you need something from IKEA. But same as above, I hate the Ikea experience, which is designed to exhaust the customer.

I once broke my iPad at Ikea out of tiredness (put it on an instable shelf while arguing with my partner).

It’s designed to make you tired, to make you argue with your partner, to make your kids run around and want things, and to make you slow down when you need to finish quickly. Ikea is designed to give you, in fine, a bad experience.

I've always thought of Ikea's business as first and foremost about international sourcing of cheap manufacturing and distribution. Walmart for furniture.

In my experience used furniture prices are all about the local supply and demand. In some places, the prices are horrific for anything,p eople are selling cheap Ikea stuff on craigslist above retail. In other places, people are practically giving it away.

>It breaks quickly

You can sometimes easily reinforce the weak parts, like screwing brittle backs of shelves on the main structure, with large repair washers else it doesn't hold.

10 years ago I would've agreed with you but now it feels different, also bland and cheap. Like what set it apart from their competitors has eroded.

I have an old ikea shelf storage that I had to disassemble/assemble at least 3 times to move. I lost few small parts. I was able to order a replacement from their site free of charge by part number. There aren’t that many furniture companies, from which you can reorder parts that easily even for newer items.

> was able to order a replacement from their site free of charge by part number

I had the same experience with a belt clip for a knife by CRKT. 25+ year old knife discontinued who knows how long ago, and they sent me replacement parts free of charge.

Good customer support wins customers, which I suspect is why many like IKEA.

I also like that they sell stuff for so long that you can buy replacements when things break. My mugs are IKEA some of them may be 20 years old. Same for plates. Even cutlery, I managed to get a matching set 10 years after the original.

I don't love IKEA, but I feel the opposite. Whereas before I thought of them as "the disposable-furniture store," now I'm less dismissive of some of their options as they have gone ever so slightly "middlescale" and offer some middling furniture.

And by my word I though ikea was bottom of the line but it turns out wayfair and Amazon can sell you much worse.

This last summer I was trying to buy an outdoor dining set.

Ikea's was all sold out. Really well designed piece, folds up nicely.

All other folding outdoor dining sets are sold online only and have terrible reviews. Horrible horrible reviews.

It turns out the price point for dining sets is as follows:

1. Whatever random product Target is selling this year for $100

2. Random product at Home Depot, which probably isn't in stock, for $250-$500, quality unknown.

3. Reasonable quality well designed piece at Ikea for $500

4. Costco's $2000 set.

Ikea continues to success for very good reasons.

Or Walmart etc.

Maybe 10 years ago, I bought an Ikea dresser for my bedroom and spent too much of a Saturday assembling it. At the time, I had some buyer's regret for not just having splurged on some expensive hardwood piece. But know what? It looks nice enough and does its job just fine.

And I have a couple modernish Ikea chairs in another room which look quite nice and are very comfortable.

I'm sure Ikea has bad stuff and better stuff and I only go every 2-3 years but don't really have complaints.

You go to get furniture and end up with meatballs and a giant shark plushie

They are free to go to Bed Bath & Beyond.

For the moment. They are on the brink of bankruptcy. They may yet avoid it but it's gonna be close.

Also, the author is British (the londonreconnections.com URL might be a clue) so BB&B is not an option. I know Reddit assumes everyone is American but HN should be better than that.

It is just an example and BB&B itself does not matter. You don't need to be an American or a British to understand BB&B is an alternative shop (and OP is not really suggesting that specific shop)

I love IKEA. They offer an affordable place to hang out at with good design.

Is it the best design? Of course not, but it’s one that you and most people can also afford at all stages of life including our high school and college years. in many cases it neither looks nor feels cheap. At the very least, it looks decent and is functional for a fair amount of time

A few years ago I started meticulously planning each Ikea trip, with a checklist of things in the right order so we'd be able to breeze through there, I know most of the shortcuts and we buy other random junk only if it's something we really honestly forgot to put on the list. It's given me headspace to do some people watching and there really is what I call the trek of despair as couples and families are travelling the long, long trail set out for them by the Ikea psychologists. Some people aren't very sensitive to the general mood in their environment and I guess you wouldn't necessarily be stressed out if you are like that, and also not too budget-constrained and/or easily tempted, but for most people, the trail of many decisions is a tough one. You can't easily come back for something because it takes half a day to do this, so each decision not to get something matters, and every meter of the way there are a couple of microdecisions to make, and the sheer number of decisions is a pretty strong stressor. It's also physically exhausting, our Ikea is quite large, I get tons of steps on my Apple Watch each time I go there, all at a pretty slow pace because others are stalling for arguments (giving you more time to start your own ones), it's really quite insidious and I'm certain none of this is an accident. It feels a lot more engineered than a typical supermarket and I know some of the psych work that goes into laying out a supermarket and those people don't leave much to chance, so I think it's reasonable to expect Ikea as a company that started exerting super tight control on their brand experience before almost anyone else in that segment and who builds their own stores will do that to an even higher degree. I guess if this leaves you wholly unaffected and unbothered (big if, a lot of this is very subconscious) then you're a big outlier. Most people certainly soak up the vibe and get stressed out to varying degrees. It's actually quite striking if you have to go there on Christmas Eve (I once had) and find the whole store pretty much empty, it completely transforms the feel of the space into something pretty fun and positive. It's a weird, weird place.

I like IKEA, but I still agree with the metaphor.

The layout is fine for a mooch, if you go for 1 specific thing, it's terrible.

In defense of the author, I think it’s a joke. You’ve opened my mind to the idea that it’s not a joke. Either way, they made me laugh. It’s a funny way to look at IKEA. Regardless, as you pointed out, it’s a unique experience.

You can like it and still be conscious of the lengths they go to in order to keep you engaged longer and spending more.

Personally, I like it every now and then, but it is exhausting, or expensive, or both.

I love IKEA. I even visited an IKEA whilst in Norway just to see how it stacked up to the UK.

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