We’ve all heard about Ikea, right? That cool place that has every type of furniture you could possibly want, the place that you can help you save money and time, the place where hipsters just hang out and normal people ‘hike’ to relax… I know people back in Romania who have drove hundred of miles to get to this blessed place and SHOP. You could say that Ikea is a brand that everyone recognizes and we all agree that it brings value to our lives.
Deep breath of air. Now this may come as a shock, but as in everything that sounds too good to be truth there are some downsides also. I wish I could say that the reduced prices (at least compared to other furniture vendors) are due only to the high volumes of sales. Unfortunately, there is one more factor that people often miss: quality. Yup, quality.
The latest example: Our sofa: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/series/07488/, the famous Erktop Sofa.  When we bought it the sofa was 350$ and the covers were 150$. A good deal, at least that’s why we thought. After 1 year of owning this the sofa started coming apart. Would you expect this from an item that brags it has a 10-year limited warranty? Keyword is here is limited. It only costs 50$ for them to pick it up and transport it back to their store. There they will try to fix it and if that doesn’t work they have the option to replace it, at their sole discretion, with a similar sofa - whatever that means. After that it’s 50$ more for the sofa to return more. Blowing 100$ on fixing something that it’s broken and should be covered by warranty? I don’t think so.
So there you have it: the myth that quality is part of the Ikea recipe, while at some point it seemed plausible it is busted.
And not to paint Ikea only in black, I think that their target really is people who rent. If you rent, you don’t care that much for furniture. Also some items are more prone to breaking down than other item. That’s why, I think, they’re so popular over here in the US.