Does My Absolute Love of IKEA make me less of a Man?

[LawBeefaroni]

I bought an Ikea bookcase. They offered delivery - great! It was expensive...but even with the shipping, it's still cheaper than getting a local option. They only deliver on Wed and Fri in my area and they call the day before with a 4 hour window. You have to be there the whole time - they can't narrow the window and won't call before arriving. Even if you are willing to schedule out in the future, they won't allow you to pick a window - you will get a call the day before and that's that. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

It's possible that a large chunk of their customer base is OK with that.

[JSHAW]

I HATE building , assembling, furniture that's from places like IKEA. So that pretty much mans I HATE IKEA.

I don't give 2 shits about how cheap or how good their food is. Food??? I can cook and eat good food at home.

I have NO desire to sit at IKEA all day, eating then shopping.

I'm the kind of man that wants to get IN, get OUT, in a very timely organized manner.

IKEA and COSTCO, two places that I can live without, and do.

Less of a man, no. Different type/kind of man? YES, I think so.

[Smoove_B]

Switch to decaff.

[hepcat]

F'ing magnets. HOW DO THEY WORK!?!?

[LordMortis]

Gotta admit I curse my fellow shoppers at COSTCO too often. For reasons I can't explain they are much worse than fellow grocery shoppers at any where else I go. I also don't care for the fact that all COSTCO's seem to have their frozen/fridge stuff in the back. That is the worst grocery shopping logistic design of all possible bad logistics.

That said, COSTCO feed me a free meal, get me coffee and oatmeal at half the price of retail, and make me feel frugal when I buy stupid amounts of snack food I shouldn't eat all. And then for a buckfiddy beyond my free meal, I get a dog and Pepsi. Also, mom like COSTCO, so I have an excuse to hang out with family while also doing something productive.

Now, my fellow shoppers, Get off the phone. Get your kids in order or leave them at home. Drive to the right. Stopping in middle of right and left is unacceptable at any point.

[LawBeefaroni]

Gotta admit I curse my fellow shoppers at COSTCO too often. For reasons I can't explain they are much worse than fellow grocery shoppers at any where else I go. I also don't care for the fact that all COSTCO's seem to have their frozen/fridge stuff in the back. That is the worst grocery shopping logistic design of all possible bad logistics.

Guessing it's in the back for at least 2 reasons.

1. To keep the perishable stuff closest to the stock rooms and docks. Less time out of refrigeration that way.

2. To force customers to walk past all the discretionary goods in order to get to food staples.


I don't shop at Costco so just a guess.

[Unagi]

While it may also be #1, I thought it was common knowledge that they do #2 for sure.

Same reason CostCo puts Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, a Diapers, and Pet Food in far far back corner.

[Jeff V]

I haven't shopped at Costco often enough to pick nits with the layout, but I recall it being similar to Sams, where first you see non-food stuff like computers, furniture, appliances, tires, clothes and books. Then you get to 100-roll packs of ass wipes and paper towels and other dry goods. Then the canned food aisles start, including pop and coffee and anything not refrigerated/frozen. Then come the freezers filled with packaged goods. Then the fresh produce, followed by fresh meat, bakery, and maybe some frozen specialty stuff like bulk scallops and crab legs. For some reason, the drugstore part is at the very end -- that could just as well be at the very beginning.

I can't say I have any issues with this layout, then again I'm not typically stressed by such things. Change a layout once you have me trained...unforgivable, but if I walk into your house the first time I probably won't complain that your bathroom isn't where I'd expect it to be.

[Holman]

Physical shopping spaces work as hard at selling as digital spaces do. Why wouldn't they?

They did this to your great-great-grandparents and to everyone since.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I was in a Costco earlier today, and I find their layout incredibly convenient.

However, I couldn't help but wonder at how they're able to sell enough of their Iberico bellota hams imported directly from Spain complete with a wooden stand to warrant the $549 price tag. Then again, that's supposedly a fraction of the typical asking price for such a delicacy. Shame they didn't appear to have any free samples of that on offer though.

[LordMortis]

I can't say I have any issues with this layout, then again I'm not typically stressed by such things. Change a layout once you have me trained...unforgivable, but if I walk into your house the first time I probably won't complain that your bathroom isn't where I'd expect it to be.

If you put the cold things near the checkout and you shop near the checkout last your cold stay cold longer. You go to the back of the store and you work your forward. Or the store works in such a way that you enter and move toward the cold stuff which leads to the check out egress. Every one does it that way but CostCo. CostCo put the cold stuff as far away form the checkout as it can be. So either you shop front to back to get you cold stuff last and then have navigate all the people leaving their cart in the middle of the aisles (or on left side), and their children while they play on their cell phones, or you go to the back of the store and shop coming forward while you cold stuff becomes not cold. Nobody else does it that way. At least not around here. And we have other marts that actually have a larger store footage than Costco, AKA Meijer. Kroger, Aldi, Meijer, I even have vague memory that WalMart has their fridge/frozens in the front of their food stuffs... Wait, now that I think about it. Target does it stupid too. I had to think about it because, I don't buy fridge/frozens from Target.

[Jeff V]

The grocery store I was at today (Jewel) has their meats, dairy, and frozen meats/seafood all along the back wall of the store. The only frozen stuff near the front is ice cream.

[Zarathud]

Costco has Cold Rooms, not just Freezer Displays. For efficiency and cost reasons, you put those items at the back. Also easier to move in bulk off the trucks. Stores put milk etc freezers by the stockrooms for this reason.

It also helps if Costco gets you through the store slow to the back and then out fast once you have the cold stuff. Once your cart is full, they want you to pay and leave. Their business model is the membership = profit. Everything else is close to cost.

[hitbyambulance]

i actually enjoy assembling furniture - even the particleboard variety.

[LordMortis]

and then out fast once you have the cold stuff.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh that's good stuff, there.

[pr0ner]

I can't say I have any issues with this layout, then again I'm not typically stressed by such things. Change a layout once you have me trained...unforgivable, but if I walk into your house the first time I probably won't complain that your bathroom isn't where I'd expect it to be.

If you put the cold things near the checkout and you shop near the checkout last your cold stay cold longer. You go to the back of the store and you work your forward. Or the store works in such a way that you enter and move toward the cold stuff which leads to the check out egress. Every one does it that way but CostCo. CostCo put the cold stuff as far away form the checkout as it can be. So either you shop front to back to get you cold stuff last and then have navigate all the people leaving their cart in the middle of the aisles (or on left side), and their children while they play on their cell phones, or you go to the back of the store and shop coming forward while you cold stuff becomes not cold. Nobody else does it that way. At least not around here. And we have other marts that actually have a larger store footage than Costco, AKA Meijer. Kroger, Aldi, Meijer, I even have vague memory that WalMart has their fridge/frozens in the front of their food stuffs... Wait, now that I think about it. Target does it stupid too. I had to think about it because, I don't buy fridge/frozens from Target.

I'll go to Costco, do all my shopping (including frozen/cold items), pay, stop for food, eat said food, then drive home, and my food is still frozen. Your cold stuff isn't going to suddenly become "not cold" simply because it's located at the back of the store.

[stessier]

You just gave Smoove a heart attack and guaranteed he will never eat a meal you cook.

[pr0ner]

You just gave Smoove a heart attack and guaranteed he will never eat a meal you cook.

[Kraken]

i actually enjoy assembling furniture - even the particleboard variety.

I do if it's well-engineered -- all the Tab A's line up exactly with their Slot B's, all the fastenings fit properly, no pieces are missing, etc. The only Ikea thing I ever assembled -- a large wardrobe -- fit that definition. However, it's also the most complicated piece of furniture I ever put together and the pictorial instructions were less than clear in a couple of places, forcing me to back up more than once. It took a lot longer than expected. I did finish with a nice, high-quality piece of furniture though.

[Holman]

We've built fifteen or more IKEA items (shelves, chairs, beds, desks), and I think we suffered a missing screw/connector only once.

Of course it was a very specific IKEA metal thing, so we couldn't just replace it from a hardware store. But when we went back to the mother ship they supplied it free, no questions asked.

[Jeff V]

The first thing I ever bought at Ikea was a desk chair. It fell apart within a year, so I've been wary of their products ever since. My wife's desk was procured from Ikea, though, and we have lots of kitchen utensils and wine glasses from there.

[gilraen]

We got a curio cabinet from IKEA, and it came almost fully assembled. That was actually very lucky: everywhere we looked, a full-height curio cabinet was at least $400 and up, just ridiculously expensive. And then we ended up finding one at IKEA for $99. I didn't even know they carried those cabinets.

[em2nought]

Wait, there's a free meal at Costco? Might have to change over from Sam's.

[mori]

He must be getting a meal off of all the samples they offer. Not for me as I give them a wide berth.

[em2nought]

He must be getting a meal off of all the samples they offer.

Ah, of course!

[stessier]

I bought an Ikea bookcase. They offered delivery - great! It was expensive...but even with the shipping, it's still cheaper than getting a local option. They only deliver on Wed and Fri in my area and they call the day before with a 4 hour window. You have to be there the whole time - they can't narrow the window and won't call before arriving. Even if you are willing to schedule out in the future, they won't allow you to pick a window - you will get a call the day before and that's that. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

Just to close the loop - I was called on Thursday at noon that the delivery was Friday from 12-4pm. Then called back at 4pm Thursday that the window was really 2-6pm.

I was dutifully home at 2pm. The delivery came at 7:30pm. They called at 7pm to see if I was still there and could accept delivery. Half of a day of vacation wasted.

One slight mitigating factor - if I click on "track my package" in the last email I got, it appears it may have been live tracking. I did that at 7pm and it was projecting an 8:30pm delivery with a note that there were still 7 orders before mine to be dropped. But there was no indication in the email that it was live tracking. All the other notes just indicated "order received, order sent from Chicago, order arrived in Charlotte, etc." If it was really live, they should have a big, blinking button so I could monitor from work and be there when it was really going to arrive.