So it turns out that IKEA is just about as bad as Wal*Mart in every measurable way

[Orrex]

Silly me--I just thought that they made ugly dorm-lobby furniture.

:shrug:

[HERVEPA]

1. More info please. Link? Thanks.

[Orrex]

3. I was hoping you'd ask!

There was a segment on Book TV this morning:

http://www.booktv.org/Program/10971/Cheap+The+High+Cost+of+Discount+Culture.aspx

I only saw about ten minutes of it because my two sons were going into violent Spongebob withdrawal, but Ellen Ruppert Shell has written a book on the fascinating subject of the psychology of shopping (that's my over-simplified summation of it).

She talked, for instance, about how IKEA postures itself as a Swedish company but is actually Dutch (for tax purposes) and how it's (one of) the world's largest consumers of wood, and how it acquires that lumber from the far eastern part of Russia--essentially a lawless territory run by organized crime. As a result, the timber is almost certainly harvested illegally, and then it's carted very cheaply across the border for manufacture in China.

And IKEA actually strong-arms China into working cheaper, if you can believe it! They use tactics like "well, we'll just go to Vietnam" if China won't bow to their wishes, and IKEA would only go to Vietnam because it's even more lax in its labor controls than the famously exploitative China!

There was more, but that's about all I can regurgitate at the moment. I might need to pick up her book, though.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

4. oh no

I didn't know any of that before I posted my post below. I'm gonna have to rethink this. Thanks for the link.

[Orrex]

6. Glad to give it!

I was really surprised, to be honest! I'm not a IKEA fan anyway, but hearing her spell it out like that really opened my eyes.

Or at least it made me want to find out more!

[HERVEPA]

7. Thanks a lot for the info. Here are a couple other links

From Salon.com

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/11/22/ikea/index.html

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/10/19/ikea_nightmare/index.html

[Orrex]

18. Thanks--I'll check those out when I have more time later today

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. The lumber harvesting in Russia was also in the New Yorker.

Some months ago.

Look on the New Yorker website to find it.

[Gormy Cuss]

25. There was a hint of this in a Mother Jones article some time back...

The illegally harvested Russian timber rang a bell
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2007/12/last-empire-chinas-pollution-problem-goes-global

I mentioned it here in an IKEA thread because I've long wondered how they could sell goods for such ridiculously low prices.

[Orrex]

28. Great link--thanks!

[Monk06]

30. And here I thought they were famous for making funiture that looks light but weighs a ton.

[Blue_Tires]

35. NOOOOOOOOOOOO

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

2. Shush your mouth

I love IKEA with the possible exception that you have to put it all together yourself. It's like a casino in there, no windows, no clocks, going around in circles trying to find the exit. My husband hates taking me there because I go silly, silly I tell ya.

[Orrex]

5. That's all by design, of course.

The build-it-yourself concept is a goldmine for the retailer, because they save on storage, on shipment, and on shelf-space.

And IIRC you can't exit the store without walking through the entire store!

I haven't been to one in about eight years, because the nearest one is ridiculously far away.


And that's by design, too; rather than building a store in every community, they build one close to a population center and let people drive to it. That saves IKEA the costs of building more stores and also the costs of maintaining and delivering to those stores, because they know that people will be happy to drive there.

According to Ms. Ruppel Shell, the average IKEA requires a round-trip drive of about 50 miles--not exactly fuel-friendly!

[WCGreen]

9. But but the meatballs......

[Catshrink]

10. And the Billy bookcases....

They sure look nice in my place. I bought the glass doors for mine because of the horrible dust we have here -- it's fine and gritty dust. My sister and I have a little wish between us: One day we'll be able to afford furniture we don't have to assemble.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

11. Ahh, the Billy...

[Catshrink]

13. Looks so familiar...

I have the Benno media cases too.. add glass doors and it's the same deal.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

15. I wanted the glass doors too

but we were poorer when we bought these. They really do get dusty!

[Catshrink]

17. They discontinued them in oak.

When I went to buy more Billys, they didn't have them. Crap. I bought half height doors and put them on the bottom. It acutally worked out better because they hide my comptuer and other junk very well. And they're filled up now.... so it's more Billys but I have no room for them or a purge. I'm leaning towards a purge.

[Call Me Wesley]

14. The Billy, not anymore produced in Germany,

but offshore and cheaper in Czechoslovakia. Sorry, article's only in German:
http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/dokument/dokument.html?titel=Zu+teuer+f%C3%BCr+Billy&id=67153497&top=SPIEGEL&suchbegriff=ikea&quellen=&qcrubrik=wirtschaft

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

16. That explains why the new Billy's

are complete shit and look like a 4 year old got a hold of a crayon and scribbled all over them. They discontinued my color and now they just have these atrocious patterned ones.

[Demoiselle]

20. My IKEA offers maps of shortcuts around just about every corner...

You don't have to follow the arrows on the floor through the whole store. Really.

[JVS]

36. The shortcuts still aren't so short a lot of the time.

As I learned when my mom and her bum knee came along on a trip once.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Except at least its easy to get out of a Walmart quickly.

With IKEA, you have to do a half mile hike just to get out of the damn place.

Although I like the little mock up apartments in IKEA. I figure if my wife ever kicks me out of the house, I'll just go down to the IKEA and stay in one of those things for a while. Not sure how good the plumbing is though....

[KurtNYC]

12. Hey IKEA is one of the last companies to have their furniture made in the USA

with American labor...

and wordless diagrams and lots of screws, anchors, hex wrenches and cowlings.

[MajorChode]

19. Many Americans simplly assume that European businesses are environmentally and socially responsible

That's just not the case. And the discount shopping craze is taking Europe by storm also, complete with the same trappings as Wal-Mart.

[WildEyedLiberal]

21. Yep - hey, they're Swedish, Sweden is a lovely and progressive country!

Well, yes it is, but that doesn't mean all European corporations share the goodwill of their home countries.

I remember that the most crazy busy store on Oxford Street in London was Primark, the discount clothing retailer where you can buy cute shirts for something like four pounds - ridiculous bargain basement prices. Course, all the shirts were made in Cambodia and Vietnam and places like that, and you can only imagine the working conditions that enable Primark to sell the finished product for four pounds.

[Orrex]

23. You've hit the nail on the head IMO

It's tempting to identify some stores as "safe" or "acceptable," when in reality the great majority of them (the really big names, anyway) are all pretty terrible in their practices.

[MajorChode]

24. So what if a 12yr old kid was chained to a sewing machine to make it

I got a good deal, dammit!

The problem with buying products in developing countries is you just don't know the conditions of the workers, even going by price. Sometimes even if the price is higher, it could just mean that some unscrupulous middle man has skimmed off the profits.

For coffee, they have what is called "Fair Trade" whereby certain standards of the local farmers and processors have to be met. If those standards are met, retailers can label their product as "Fair Trade". The Fair Trade organization receives compensation from the retailer and insures the standards are met.

Perhaps they have something like that with clothing and furniture, but if they do I've never heard of it.

[tigereye]

32. I seem to remember there are clothing companies that have healthy

labor practices... blanking on em at the moment - I suspect someone will come along and name a few...



Shame about Ikea - it always seems so kid-friendly and responsible - :(

[Orrex]

22. Ms. Ruppel Shell also described the phenomenon known as "shrouding"

The two worst offenders, she said, are razors and printers.

The printer costs $45, which seems quite reasonable until you realize that a pair of ink cartridges costs $50. Sure, you can get them refilled at Walgreens, but even that's about $30, and it adds up.

Something similar applies to razors, especially the ones with quadruple-redundant blades. The razor itself costs seven or eight bucks, but the blades cost $20 or $25! And it's not as though "strips of sharpened metal" represent a technology breakthrough, either!

[Gormy Cuss]

26. Gillette had this model with razor way back when...

They may have been the first to do - I can't remember for certain.

[Orrex]

27. I have to confess that replacement blades are one purchase I always make @ Wal*Mart

I use the same basic Atra razor I've had for 20 years, and a pack of ten Gillette blades is like $10.99 versus $3.99 for the Wal*Mart brand of equal quality.

[ipfilter]

37. I refused to be held hostage to the razor blade cartels

and just stopped shaving. Now I wear a tightly cropped beard and keep it trimmed with a beard trimmer.

[Sabriel]

31. They're also concerned with child-labor issues

I'm not saying they don't have iffy lumber practices, but it's a little early to paint them with the Walmart brush:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article6870158.ece

[LynneSin]

33. I go just for the swedish meatball meals

Yummy!!!

[Vidar]

34. I saw the Book TV piece too. Disappointing.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

38. i used to LOVE ikea but have decided that even if i may $50 -100 bucks extra

for different pieces of furniture, its better to put the money in my neighbourhood store

especially cos the owner has this hanging on his wall " Certificate of permamanent membership to the The Congress of Racial Equality"