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Comment by cinntaile | Hacker News Reader

That's a fair point and a trend I have definitely noticed as well. The price quality ratio isn't what it used. The founder died 5 years ago, I wonder if it's related. He was a notorious penny pincher.

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It also depends on the region. Here in HK, Ikea is very expensive (about double the price I used to see in France), to the point where it's cheaper to get a wardrobe custom made in good quality plywood exactly according to our dimensions than to buy a wardrobe that's close to the dimensions we need in Ikea.

In Japan it was the only place I found with good reasonably priced furniture, especially for larger sofas and beds. Nitori was good quality but a bit more expensive and everything was low and small. Besides that, there seemed to be absolute junk for low prices and high end handmade stuff for very high prices. I simply wasn’t anywhere else with stuff in the midrange.

Now I love close to France and Ikea is definitely the best value for midrange. Some of the German chains are pretty good too (but still 30% more comparing similar quality).

Yup, lived in Japan before moving here and definitely matches my experience :) The one other store besides Nitori and Ikea was Muji. I bought a few furniture from them which was decent. Definitely more adapted to the Japanese market in term of dimensions.

That’s so cool. Plywood furniture in the UK is uber premium as plywood is super expensive here.

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