Heads up: Ikea stuff may not be cheap for much longer

You may not know that the reason Ikea stuff is so cheap is that the company is a tax-dodger extraordinaire, and the EU is finally taking notice of this.

Get your cheap furniture with comical instructions while you can!

I doubt this will stop my wife from dragging me through that place once a month to oogle things...

Well, that is fishy, but I will tell you that they are doing something right in the world of furniture. I have assembled LOTS of their stuff and I find everything is incredibly precise, and the joinery is really fast and strong.

I have also started to notice that other furniture brands are starting to copy the manufacturing methods, joinery, and instructions (which, let's be honest, Ikea totally ripped that idea from LEGO), making the other furniture better at the same time.

Result of the world's most effective non-profit?

To be fair, I'm not generally a defender of megacorps getting out of taxes, the old double Dutch tax dodge was pretty common and IKEA actually does have a pretty substantial presence there unlike other companies who where "nationless", shifted intellectual property there, and only had a handful of retail outlets in the countries. Now if IKEA was shifting profits they should pay since that's patently illegal.

I think the EU is getting some balls now that they've slapped down Apple.

IKEA is also a leader in forest and energy sustainability owning huge swaths of forestland within Europe. So there's probably some serious write-offs there too.

Never been in a store, but I have done two kitchens that used their cabinets.  On one, the paint on the upper cabinets by the stove blistered off the first time they heated a pot of water on high.  The second, the rails split in multiple places when screws for hinges and the screws for the anti tip brackets on the dishwasher were installed.

Ikea used to sell stuff that wasn't made in Asian sweatshops.  I think that stopped quite a few years ago.

This is our Ikea kitchen stuff, purchased this summer. All the doors are soft-close, the drawers are soft-close, and the drawer shelves inside the cabinets are soft-close. We bought all this stuff in the summer during the kitchen sale, I think it was about $3k. Took me about 16 hours (I went from 8 to midnight) to assemble it all from flat pieces in boxes in the back of a minivan to what you see there. Some of the big pieces would've been better with 2 people, but I was fine on my own.

All I did was level the cleat that you install to the wall at the back, everything else literally fell into place. Nothing broke, nothing split, everything works, and there is hardly any left over hardware (waste). The drawers and doors have adjustments like most other cabinets, and though I could work mine to make them perfect, I never did. This is literally how it came out of the box. The precision is incredible considering these are floor-to-ceiling pieces. Compared to the high-end semi-custom cabinets we bought and I installed at our last house, I'd go Ikea again every time.

At the same time however I did a built-in closet thing from Ikea too, which is clearly an older design with older manufacturing processes. It is a piece of junk relatively. If the old cabinets use that closet system, or are similar, I would understand that people don't like them.

I wonder if Ikea will present their tax documents to the investigators in the same format as the instructions to build their furniture?

This thread hurts. 

I've never considered Ikea stuff to be cheap.

I spent $1000 for two small wood and leather Ikea chairs because Mrs. Woof wanted them. It was more than I wanted to spend, but that was 20 years ago, we sit in the every day, and they're still like new.

Surprise!  Surprise! A large corporation looks to find ways to dodge taxes. That detail aside, they do offer some interesting products and I find some of their designs to be rather clever. I've had some of their furniture for over 35 years and it's still serviceable, but I've also had some items that were junk in 3 or 4 years. I make a trip to the nearest store about once a year just to see what's new.

I do have to say that Ikea has an amazing return / exchange policy. If you drive down the road with a brand new( still in the box) arm chair unstrapped in the back of your pick up truck and it fly's out into traffic at 60mph they will give you a new one ;) just saying.

Don’t they have good meatballs?  

dean1484 said:

Don’t they have good meatballs?  

The definitely not horse meatballs are ok. The Monte Cristo is where it's at though. 

smoked salmon with capers on little fancy crackers......