I'm gonna preface by stating that I'm a very FREQUENT IKEA customer, and have been in a lot of locations. We're a military family, which means we move a lot, and routinely have our things packed and shipped by military contracted movers who are less than gentle and less than caring about how badly they beat up your stuff.
Consequently, inexpensive furniture that doesn't have a lot of sentimental value and can easily be replaced when the inevitable mangling and gouging occurs is our jam. When we arrive at a new duty statiin, proximity to an IKEA is among the first things we check out. For what it is, it just works for our lifestyle. No illusions that it is premier quality, it is what it is and that works for us. Our house is like 90% IKEA at any given point.
So, given that background, this might be the worst IKEA I've been in. I've been in several since the pandemic started that have managed to do a good job, so it's not the issue. This one has disappointed every time I've been there.
It's set up in an aggravating manner, but this is to be expected with COVID precautions and I don't hold that against them. I generally think they do a great job with Covid precautions, which is why they got as many stars as they got from me. What I do think is a big problem is that their inventory is a *disaster.* We all get that supply chains are disrupted, of course. And I was willing to give some leeway the first time I went, because it was the weekend after Thanksgiving, when one anticipates picked over stock in the best of years.
But it's been ongoing, and more than the supply being pretty weak across the board (half the items on display have out of stock tags, and not just the predictable stuff like home office furniture...but even that, come on...it's been months and months since people started setting up home offices en masse), it's that the inventory is unreliable. Things listed as sold out are often sitting on the warehouse, perfectly on stock, while items listed as in stock are nowhere to be seen. IKEA gives you the option of signing up for text notification when an own you are seeking has the stock replenished. This was the case with my kids' bed frames...but I never got the notifications I signed up for. I've also been notified that an item was back in stock, trekked in over (bit of a drive), and it's not in stock.
My husband actually just recently had it happen where the inventory tags were TOTALLY WRONG. Like, looking for a table that is inventoried in stock, only to find a totally different table, and the actual table is a whole other lot number and double the cost. When asking for assistance on this problem, too, he got epic attitude.
Which brings us to this.. the attitudes, too, are problematic. When I, or my husband, approach any retail or customer service associate, we are unfailingly polite and deferring. We are the epitome of Midwest Nice, for God's sake, we the sort of people who would knee-jerk apologize OURSELVES for a store being out of stock...like, "Ope, gosh, I'm so sorry to have to trouble you for assistance, I didn't mean to be looking for something you don't have, my bad!" Never belligerent or put out. But the associates here are suuuuuuuper rude.
They are consistently out of particular finishes, which is not the individual store's fault, but again, poor system for communicating when inventory is back in stock. I've never had this pair at any other IKEA, before or during the pandemic. read more