I have moved many times with Ikea furniture and purchased it used with no problems. Ikea furniture is some of the most disassemble and reassemble-able furniture I've seen.
My nightstand only went through the truck move though, and it has chunks missing on the bottom corners. The moving company warned us that it was common and they would refuse to move it unless we we willing to forgo any damage claims on those pieces.
I think it has a lot to do with the design of each individual product, it’s hard to generalize about how durable they are. The bottom corners of HAUGA are a weak material and not well supported, if it gets hit there or maybe even catches on the floor while sliding sideways it’s going to crunch.
I mean, talking about having you over a barrel. They know precisely that you will not stop, and find another mover. All they need to do is stretch wrap the bejeebus out of the bottom to protect those exposed pressed wood chips, but they don't want to have to do that, so they have you give them a waiver and move on to not caring
Selling Ikea furniture during the summer when the college students are gone and having to price it to sell the same day, we probably would've got $5. Not worth it at all.
Which is why I too claim that all IKEA furniture I dealt with can barely survive disassembly and reassembly - by the time I wanted them moved somewhere, they've accumulated too much structural damage.
More recently - i.e. in the last 5-8 years - all the new IKEA furniture I dealt with felt... flimsy and dangerous out of the box. Now, a wobbly wardrobe or a bookshelf that looks like it'll break apart if you push it sideways is tolerable in an apartment with two sober, working adults - but the moment a child was to enter the picture, we made sure to screw all IKEA furniture to the wall, and ever since, we don't assemble wardrobes and other "fixed" furniture ourselves - we pay a handyman to do it, and to reinforce them structurally with metal elements and glue, and then screw them to the walls or otherwise do whatever is necessary to ensure nothing will collapse or topple when mishandled by a small child.
In short: to me, IKEA furniture looks nice until you start using it, and is otherwise rather fragile. But it's cheap, and still miles better than any other flat-pack furniture vendor, so like everyone else, that's what we buy.
For instance I have bought some IKEA metallic tables and these do not contain anything that is fragile or that may be damaged without a huge effort to do that.
After some 5 years there is no visible difference from the day when I have assembled them and I do not expect any to appear soon. They look like they will easily outlive me.
If I had bought some flimsy tables made of some wood substitute or dubious plastic, then yes, I would have expected them to not age well.
It absolutely does. They have several quality/price tiers for most IKEA furniture that rather predictable goes from particle board to plywood to solid wood. The materials are listed on the tag in the IKEA showroom so I literally just look for the product that have only solid wood (and veneer if applicable).
The particle board is crap that quickly deteriorates, especially if you spill anything on the exposed particle board. The plywood is actually quite good if you apply a little wood glue to the joints, and the solid wood is usually the best bang for the buck furniture you can buy outside of craigslist heirloom pieces.
That's what the instructions tell you to do
IKEA also sells furniture of varying qualities - for example, KALLAX is a well-known line of shelves that many vinyl enthusiasts use to store records. Records are extremely heavy, but these stand the test of time.
Another example is in the bedroom department: MALM vs KULLEN. The former is much thicker and sturdier, with drawers that have metal hardware. Kullen on the other hand is thinner, flimsy, and uses plastic hardware for the drawers, giving them an awful tactile feel.
Which absolutely do exist. But they're not any safer due to cutting corners on safety. IKEA deserves applause for the consistent warning and hardware.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2021/01/29/ike...
Also, can we get a raise of hands on the number of people who have vs have not been successful in disassembling and reassembling IKEA BILLY bookshelves? I am fully convinced that it is near impossible for your average person to disassemble and reassemble BILLY bookshelves without damage.
I have a number of shelves possibly still sitting in storage at the university I studied at years ago, of all places. For two reasons. One, that I could not find anyone to help me get back in the room where they are stored after I left said university. Two, because I was so sceptical of ever being able to disassemble those bookshelves that I thought it better to leave them there until I could find a way to transport them without having to disassemble them again.
It's been years. I wonder if the shelves are still down there in the dank basement of the chemistry building of the University of Oslo alongside other PING student union things.
It's absolutely not made to be disasembled. You'd need to go with the HEMNES line to have something a bit more solid and well thought out.
People put all IKEA stuff in the same basket, but they have different designers who can have pretty different philosophies on how the furnitures are structured. Some are really clever, others really cheap and dumb. Their EXPEDIT / KALLAX line is another line that is extremely good regarding flexibility and modularity. We actually use two as bookshelves.
We've also inherited a few spare elements for BILLYs, I think some doors and shelves, never unpacked. I believe the previous owner gave up at the idea of attaching them to the assembled bookshelves, and never bothered to return them to the store.
Perhaps the difference stems from how rushed/impatient one was during initial assembly. I do know a couple pieces where that happened and it resulted in wonky furniture because this knob was jammed in or that bit was misaligned for months. Would make sense considering a lot of people feel excited after purchasing it that they don't take their time with assembly.
This is mostly for the older pieces, I know a lot of them now you have to really mess up for it to affect future reassembly.
Some movers once mentioned that old IKEA stuff was in general great, then they were terrible, and then they were just okay. Since they resigned Billy about a year ago†, they're probably going to get cheaper again.
† https://about.ikea.com/en/newsroom/2022/05/24/ikea-relaunche...
Adding wood glue to any places with dowels or even any joints is a pretty cheap, low-effort way to get a 2-3x life multiplier on that type of furniture. As long as you don't want to disassemble again, of course.