IKEA - wonderful or overhyped?

circadian wrote: »

I can't stand it. Having to follow the path through the store, which is always rammed, to get one or two things you know you're looking for but want to see in in the flesh, to be sure of what you're buying.

It can take an age to check something out, get to the warehouse to pick it up and pay for it.

There are side doors that act as shortcuts to every department, you don't ever have to trapse around the track. Granted me and the misses do as we just like having a "pooch".

For certain things ( typically if its for me, most recently some things to house my consoles and games, or last year a new PC desk) I get the codes and locations through the website and when I get there I'm straight into the Warehouse, picked, self service, gone.

Thinking about it we hit up IKEA a lot, pays to kinda know the time to go as well. It's open pretty late, so anytime after 8pm Mon,Tues,Wed,Fri is ideal.
I'd never go on the weekend as it's packed. Mon or Fri night after 8pm seems to be the best, place is empty and you whizz around.

Bargain area usually gets fresh stock on a Monday after the returns/damages done to display stock over the weekend

IKEA is indeed brilliant.

The furniture and beds market is otherwise full of snake oil salesmen who would tell you anything to get a sale. Or Hardly Normals or other self appointed "specialists" who would charge you an arm and a leg for a basic double bed and mattress.

Ikea sells flat pack furniture. Store is massive. Have plenty of choice and stock and a website witha working online stock checker. There's a place to eat, and there's a place to keep kids busy. There's free parking and it's accessible from M50 (I remember driving around and around Blanchardstown shopping center car park looking for a place to park - screw that!!).

Ikea even have their own forest that they manage and they use that to make these furniture. What more can you ask for? Their prices are lowish not because they sell poor quality stuff, but because they shift serious volumes. If they have one man design something, goes into production, that gets sold across the globe for years and sells in hundreds of thousands, small profits adds up for Ikea.

What is there not to like about Ikea? Unless they are hurting your own small scale furniture business, you got to love them for what they do!

I used to work in furniture removals so I disliked IKEA stuff as it breaks easier when you drop it. Then I bought a house and now have to buy furniture for it so I dreaded the thought of being dragged around IKEA for the day (I hear there's a one-way route!) looking at furniture, a fate many of my brethren have fallen to.

Then, I compared IKEA prices to the furniture prices at most other furniture shops in Ireland. Now I am a big fan of IKEA and I still haven't even been there yet.

Don't forget the napkins....

rob316 wrote: »

The only thing that doesn't stop me buying more is I'm in Cork.

There's a guy who goes up to IKEA twice a week from Cork and delivers it to your house for like €50 or something.... Mum used him recently when we moved house, so you can look everything up online and tell him exactly what to get and he goes up and does it for a few people and brings it back to Cork!

shar01 wrote: »

Don't forget the napkins....

There is more IKEA napkins in my house than the Irish Merchants warehouse!

clever user name wrote: »

Was talking to somone who us a manager there and apparently they make more than million euros every weekend. Mad money!!!

In saying that, I like the place and if I needed some sort of furniture it's the first place I would go. The cafe there is great too, cheap food

Yep the Dublin store turnover is €1m a week.

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I really cannot believe the number of posters around here who say they like the Ikea meatballs. Absolutely vile and disgusting pustules of cheap meat and filler dosed in violently oversalted gravy. They may be cheap but they are very bad value. The only use for them I can think of is if you suddenly felt a desire to have an impromptu game of handball in the Ikea restaurant and needed a rubbery sphere to use as the ball.
The artificially smoked salmon wasn't much better.

Agreed. I'd rather chop my balls off and eat them instead. The quality of the food compliments the quality of the furniture.

towelly wrote: »

Agreed. I'd rather chop my balls off and eat them instead. The quality of the food compliments the quality of the furniture.

You see I don't get the bashing such as above. It's a shop which stocks a range of furniture at varying price points. Want an inexpensive sofa for a room you hardly use for €100, they have it. Want something better as your main sofa that's good quality and expensive.... they have it. Fancy a cheap wardrobe for €60 quid no worries. However you can pay hundreds for a high quality one should you wish. Point being that they don't just stock cheap disposable furniture, they stock higher price point equivalents too.

The cafe is a mixed bag too. I wouldn't blankly state that the food is muck... some of it is but some of their dishes are quite delicious such as the lamb shank.

It's a multi nation store which is massively popular. It stocks a range of varying quality furniture, at varying price points to suit their customers. If you are a student with little money in your pocket then you're just as welcome as the two income couple who have money to burn.

I despise the place, I really hate going there. But to say the furniture is terrible quality is ridiculous.

Deleted User wrote: »

It is a place for women.

I thought it was for furniture and pillows and plates and meatballs and stuff, must have a closer look next time