The Ikea Experience (Ikea)

Member Name: Madge11

Product:	Ikea
Date:	08/10/06 (3715 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: it's cheap

Disadvantages: it's crowded

Ikea is one of those stores you either love or hate. I’m afraid I fall into the category of those who love it! My husband complains when we go there, but I do feel that secretly, he loves it too! We had to visit today as the swivel chair we use for the computer was giving up the ghost. We have had to tighten the back a couple of times a week to stop it falling off. We had looked around at other stores, but couldn’t find anything we both liked in our price range.

WHERE IS IT?
There are 14 Ikea stores around the country, four in the London area at Wembley, Croydon, Edmonton and Lakeside, and other stores at Milton Keynes, Cardiff, Bristol, Wednesbury, Nottingham, Warrington, Leeds, Gateshead, Glasgow and Edinburgh. There is also a new store due to open in Ashton Under Lyne in late 2006.
We went to the store in Valley Park, Croydon today, but in the past we have also been to Wembley and Edmonton.

THE STORE
There is a big car park, which has been fairly recently expanded. We got there early and managed to park quite near the entrance which is very clearly marked with the blue and yellow sign. (By the time we left the parking area in front of the store was completely packed.)
Once inside there are toilets downstairs. I can’t comment on the gents, but beware in the ladies; the hand dryer makes an uncomfortably loud noise. There are seven toilets, and at times it is necessary to queue. (I counted them while I was queuing!) There is also a separate baby changing area.
There is also a children’s play area and ball room. Children can be left here while you shop as it is supervised by qualified staff. It is free, but there are restrictions on the numbers allowed at any one time.
Outside is a large TV and seating area, where quite a few kids were just watching cartoons.
Here you can pick up your free catalogue.
An escalator takes you upstairs where you can start your shopping experience, although you could be distracted by the restaurant (and more toilets) if so inclined.
This is a good place to pick up your free tape measure, pencils (they always come in handy at home!) and a store guide – you’ll need this later.
The store is laid out in various departments, and you are encouraged to pass through them all by following the arrows on the floor, but there are a couple of shortcuts, for those who don’t want to see everything. The Croydon store is laid out as follows: living rooms, storage, work, kitchens and dining, bedrooms, bath shop, childrens, seasonal, cooking and eating, textiles, lighting, home organization. Most of the areas have room sets, to illustrate how the furniture, etc, could look. Ikea are happy for you to sit on all the chairs and bounce on all the beds, should you wish too!
Dotted around the store are blue information points where you can find staff if you need to ask a question. Here you can take advantage of their kitchen and office planning service (if you haven’t already done it on line), or arrange for your kitchen to be installed (at extra cost). When we bought fitted wardrobes, they showed us a plan of each piece on the computer and made suggestions as to which shelves, baskets etc we might want inside. They also made sure we got all the pieces we needed, as the wardrobes didn’t come as a complete unit, you had to order the sides and the doors as separate items.

SHOPPING
If the item you require has a yellow tag (larger items, such as sofas or beds) you will need to contact a member of staff. However if the item has a red tag you can pick it up later in the Self Serve Warehouse. Each tag tells you about the product and where to find it in the warehouse. On the back of the store guide (which you picked up earlier) is a “shopping list” to fill in the name, number, size, quantity, colour and aisle and location number of the item you wish to purchase.
All Ikea products have their own name – the “Billy” bookcase being a prime example. Most of the names are Swedish and I’m sure they mean little to the average English person. We have Ektorp sofas, Pax wardrobes and a Hemnes chest of drawers.

THE MARKET HALL
Having perused the main shopping area, it’s downstairs on the travelator (a big improvement on waiting for the lifts) to the Market Hall. This is another huge area filled with smaller items, which you can pick up from the displays and put straight into your trolley. Here you can find things such as glasses, crockery, scissors, candles, storage jars, plants, and a million other things, most of which you didn’t realise you needed until you saw it.

THE SELF SERVE WAREHOUSE
Having filled your trolley in the Market Hall, you will probably need another one when you get out of there and into the Self Serve Warehouse. This is much as it sounds, with huge floor to ceiling metal racks full of flat packed furniture. Each aisle is numbered at the end, and along the shelves are other numbers corresponding to the ticket on the piece of furniture you require. E.g. Aisle 10, 109/23. I’m sure there must be occasions when items are out of stock when you reach the warehouse, but we are fortunate that this has never happened to us. Ikea do suggest on the website and in the catalogue that if you are after a particular item, you should ring the store to check stock availability.

If you are buying big items, such as sofas, you will be directed by staff on the shop floor to another part of the warehouse, where staff actually retrieve the items for you and load them into your trolley. (Although, at Wembley you had to drive to the other part of the warehouse with your receipt to collect your goods.)

THE TILLS
At the end of the warehouse is a huge double bank of tills across the exit. They always seem to busy, no matter what time of day we have been there.

HOME DELIVERY
You’ve worked your way through the store, battled through the tills and out the exit and got back to your car, only to find that the handy flat packed piece of furniture you bought won’t fit into you car? No problem, you can arrange for a home delivery. After the tills there’s usually another queue to join at the Home Delivery Desk to arrange this. Prices vary, depending on how far you are from the store and the value of goods to be delivered. When we’ve used this they were very inflexible about delivery days. Croydon, for instance, could only deliver the next day (even though it was a Sunday) because we were in their local area. At Wembley I think they delivered to our area two or three days a week and our stuff was delivered the next available day.

Although it is a couple of years since we used this I seem to remember we paid about £60 (from Croydon to Woking, so it’s not cheap, but it would have taken numerous trips in the car to get it all, even if our car was big enough), and for that they delivered a three seater and two seater sofa, an armchair and a couple of 8’ high (but flat packed) built in wardrobes with all the shelves, etc for the insides. We were in the middle of decorating the living room and didn’t actually want the stuff until later in the week, but they wouldn’t hold our stuff back at all; we had to have it delivered the following day. Fortunately the sofas were plastic covered so we just sat them in the middle of the room anyway!

OPENING TIMES
Times vary from store to store, but most are open at least 10am – 10pm Monday to Friday, 9am – 7pm Saturday, and 11am – 5pm on Sundays. On Sundays the Croydon store opens at 10am “for browsing” but the tills don’t open until 11am.

THE RESTAURANT
The restaurant serves reasonably priced meals, snacks or just coffee. They also have a special kids’ menu. It is separated into non smoking and smoking areas. There are signs everywhere saying “please help us to keep costs down by taking your tray back to the work station”.
We like to go for the breakfast which is only 95p. For this you get one sausage, one piece of bacon, one hash brown, half a tomato, baked beans and scrambled egg. We’ve always found it to be very tasty and nicely cooked. Coffee or tea is 75p for a smallish cup, but you can go back and get yourself a refill as many times as you like.
Breakfast is only served until 11am.

PAYMENT
Ikea accept cash, cheque, Switch, Solo, Electron, Delta, Visa and MasterCard. However, they do levy a 70p admin charge if paying by Visa or MasterCard. I believe the theory behind this is that rather than pass on charges to every customer by raising their prices, they only pass on the credit card companys’ charges to those customers paying with credit cards. To avoid this, Ikea do offer the option of their own credit card, the Ikea Home Card.

RETURNS
Should you wish to return anything you can have a full refund if you return the item to the store in the original packaging with your till receipt within 90 days. Opened packages will be subject to a 30% deduction on the refund. N.B. You will have to be prepared to queue to return your goods in the returns area.

ENVIROMENTAL POLICY
Ikea say they “strive to miminise any possible damaging effects to the environment which may result as a consequence of our activities”. To this end they have now started to charge for plastic bags. The bags cost 10p each and are made from starch extracted from corn which will naturally break down in a compost bin. Apparently this is the first retail carrier bag in the UK which is fully biodegradable and compostable. The money made from charging for carrier bags is donated to the organization “Community Forests”.
Plastic bag use has reduced by 97% since the charge was introduced.
You can also buy a very large reusable blue Ikea bag for 25p.

DID WE GET WHAT WE WENT FOR?
We certainly did. We tried all the chairs in the “work” section, decided which one we liked best and made a note of the name and number. Unfortunately, on the way to the Self Serve Warehouse we also managed to pick up two cushions, two pillows, some scented candles, some Christmas decorations and a box of crackers, a rug and a CD rack! (Mustn’t say anything about the 10 free pencils we got though!)
We arrived at 10am as they opened, and left about 12.30, although that did include time spent having breakfast.

IN CONCLUSION
I can’t help myself, I love Ikea! We live far enough away that we don’t visit that regularly (probably couldn’t afford it too often as we buy too much!) but when we do go I generally enjoy the experience. (The only time I didn’t like it was a Saturday afternoon, rather near Christmas. The stores always seem to be crowded, but that afternoon you could barely move.) We have bought many things over the years, from large things like the aforementioned sofas, to small things like a garlic press, and maybe we have just been lucky, but everything has been easy to put together, had no missing pieces and has stood up to general wear and tear.
The only thing I can think of which I wouldn’t buy again, is a chopping board. The surface degenerated very quickly and after going in the dishwasher a few times it became warped. On the other hand, it only cost £1.39 so I wouldn’t expect it to last forever.
You could buy just about everything needed to furnish a home from Ikea. Their prices are generally very reasonable and although it’s maybe not absolutely top quality, it’s plenty good enough for the price you pay.
I do realise that it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, and if you are someone who likes to dash in, grab what you want and run out, you probably won’t like the Ikea experience. However, if you enjoy shopping and have time to spare it is worth the effort to get there.

www.ikea.co.uk

Summary: a great experience if you enjoy shopping