Originally posted by Nilsen
If you like IKEA design or not is one thing, but you cant deny that its one of the greatest success stories ever in the business world.
I have plenty of their products and they are of good quality at a decent price. I have a mix of IKEA and old furniture in my office, and the missus use only IKEA products in hers. Nothing wrong with any of them if you stay away from the cheapest stuff.
Yeah, design is a love it or hate it kind of thing. Have bought a few things there (actually, the then-wife took me there, she chose and I paid) a china hutch and a dinner table. Average quality, nothing stunning. One of the legs on the table still doesn't fit right even after getting a replacement from the store.
The last retail store I worked at had a break room dinner table and chairs from IKEA. Spray paint over bare wood. Needless to say after about 2 months it looked like something Esteban would have designed (if you don't know about Esteban guitars look em up. Cheap Chinese made crap, we're talking fake rosewood fingerboards, spray painted black to look like rosewood only the paint comes off after only a little playing.). So for the rest of the time I worked there that table and chairs went from black to a natural pine-tone with intermittant splotches of black paint that hadn't rubbed off. And some of the chairs were assembled incorrectly at the factory.
But they do have really awesome Swedish meatballs at the cafeteria in the store. That's why I went all those times. She shopped, I ate. Fair trade to me.