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IKEA sucks at online ordering
May. 29th, 2021 08:37 amUsually twice a year we venture to IKEA to see what’s new and maybe pick up a couple of things. That’s not happening alas—we drove by IKEA recently, saw the lineup outdoors just to get in and noped right on out. I can’t imagine loving IKEA so much to stand in line for a couple of hours. As I often say to hubs “I don’t hate myself that much to [do XYZ].”
I took my wish list and went online, dutifully measuring my office and the spare bedroom. Stuff is spilling out of my office and into the hallway and, hah, floors are not a long-term storage solution ;-D Rather than embrace the chaos, I decided to order another ALEX drawer unit, a short BILLY bookcase, a folding laptop stand looks awesome for crafts, and a monitor stand.
So, TL;DR—IKEA sucks at online ordering. Either this is deliberate, and they still want you in the store to eat meatballs and impulse buy all the fun cheap things, or they just really, really, don’t have a great North American online ordering experience. A little Googling brought up many Reddit threads about this problem.
Basically, everything I added to my shopping cart had a quantity of one. However, when I checked out, everything was suddenly unavailable for online delivery or curb side pick-up. Huh?
Redditors suggested refreshing, clearing caches, etc etc, which I tried. After more finagling, I discovered that if I ordered just the monitor stand and the BILLY bookcase, that yes! Those could be delivered. Add a single item and suddenly everything was unavailable. It took a ridiculous amount of time to figure out what I could and could not order. Realizing that I could be happy with just the two things, I placed my order.
Now, here is where Reddit was helpful again. A few days after placing my order, I didn’t receive any update emails after the initial one. My credit card had not been charged. I logged in to check my order and it wasn’t there! I clicked on the link in the email and the message said my order didn’t exist. Huh?
I hopped on the online chat and the CSR’s best guess was to check for updates this weekend. Huh?
Apparently contacting the CSR made things happen. I received a text with a link to my order a few hours later. However, the sender didn’t identify themselves as IKEA, so I didn’t tap the link. A follow up email with FedEx tracking numbers showed up a few more hours later, however. My items were being shipped from Richmond, British Columbia, instead of from the Calgary store. They arrived yesterday although the BILLY bookcase ended up with some dinged corners. After all that effort to get them, I just had to say “Good enough!”
So yes, I’m completely surprised that this wasn’t the expected seamless experience. If you try ordering something from IKEA—heed my advice and make sure to check Reddit or ask a CSR.
I took my wish list and went online, dutifully measuring my office and the spare bedroom. Stuff is spilling out of my office and into the hallway and, hah, floors are not a long-term storage solution ;-D Rather than embrace the chaos, I decided to order another ALEX drawer unit, a short BILLY bookcase, a folding laptop stand looks awesome for crafts, and a monitor stand.
So, TL;DR—IKEA sucks at online ordering. Either this is deliberate, and they still want you in the store to eat meatballs and impulse buy all the fun cheap things, or they just really, really, don’t have a great North American online ordering experience. A little Googling brought up many Reddit threads about this problem.
Basically, everything I added to my shopping cart had a quantity of one. However, when I checked out, everything was suddenly unavailable for online delivery or curb side pick-up. Huh?
Redditors suggested refreshing, clearing caches, etc etc, which I tried. After more finagling, I discovered that if I ordered just the monitor stand and the BILLY bookcase, that yes! Those could be delivered. Add a single item and suddenly everything was unavailable. It took a ridiculous amount of time to figure out what I could and could not order. Realizing that I could be happy with just the two things, I placed my order.
Now, here is where Reddit was helpful again. A few days after placing my order, I didn’t receive any update emails after the initial one. My credit card had not been charged. I logged in to check my order and it wasn’t there! I clicked on the link in the email and the message said my order didn’t exist. Huh?
I hopped on the online chat and the CSR’s best guess was to check for updates this weekend. Huh?
Apparently contacting the CSR made things happen. I received a text with a link to my order a few hours later. However, the sender didn’t identify themselves as IKEA, so I didn’t tap the link. A follow up email with FedEx tracking numbers showed up a few more hours later, however. My items were being shipped from Richmond, British Columbia, instead of from the Calgary store. They arrived yesterday although the BILLY bookcase ended up with some dinged corners. After all that effort to get them, I just had to say “Good enough!”
So yes, I’m completely surprised that this wasn’t the expected seamless experience. If you try ordering something from IKEA—heed my advice and make sure to check Reddit or ask a CSR.
