I am fortunate enough to live within a short drive of IKEA Dublin. It is easy for me to drop up there for a quick visit to pick up something and I usually enjoy the trip. Not on my recent trip.
I was buying a microwave and had checked its measurements for the spot where it was to be placed – Lidl’s recent offer was a bit too big and IKEA’s was just right. Having gathered my information I made sure I had the details and it was in stock and set off. Transaction Cost Economics has a nice word for these investments of time and search I had already spent on my IKEA planned purchase: Relationship Specific Assets – very useful if I proceeded with my exchange at IKEA but useless with another seller.
Arriving at IKEA the procedure seemed clear – go with the item number to an IKEA in-store information desk. I did but alas nobody was in attendance. Waiting a while I notice a nearby IKEA employee and asked for help. She was busy with other stuff and sent me back to the empty desk. Fair enough, staff cannot be expected to do all jobs at the same time. The information desk guy eventually arrived back – though I noticed the employee I had bothered was also asked for help by others and had gone to the effort of phoning her colleague to help out. On his return the information guy told me I could should do it all at a machine – a pity the IKEA app instructions had not said that in the first place!
Going to the machine I followed the not so clear instructions. Checked that I had done what I could do it, the next step was to go to the check-out. Big queue with only a few assisted check-outs. Got a hint from a whispered complaint from the guy in front, that things were not going to go well, and sure enough when I got to the check-out I was told to go back and generate the order from back where I started – I would be given help there. When I said that it didn’t work that apparently was a problem with me. It seems that IKEA has trained its few check-outs assistants to blame customers for IKEA system not working.
Luckily I was with a calmer companion and we repaired to some seats. Tempted to abandon IKEA and go elsewhere I realised my Relationship Specific Assets would be worthless and I’d have to engage in search again. Checking the online click & collect would mean a return visit. My companion agreed to try the instore procedure again. She got it to work both with the assistance of my experience and her own calmer intellect, but not with ease.
We brought our hard-earned in-app (thankfully IKEA was already occupying space on our phone) bar code to the checkout. We then inquired that we were correct in thinking we should now bring our receipt to another IKEA queue and when this was confirmed, I added that I was unhappy with my experience. Very pleasantly, the IKEA employ asked if I had noted the name of her colleague involved with the experience – IKEA’s training seems to be blame the worker if the customer can’t be blamed. Our final IKEA queue of the day took another 10 minutes or so.
Not the worst experience in the world and I am grateful and feel lucky to so easily buy such an item. It is though illustrative of the way corporations can dump costs on others, and IKEA is almost saintly compared to the Silicon Valley leaders in the field. The market-power of these corporations means customers can be dumped on, and more consequently that me in IKEA. We need more active and strong competition and regulatory agencies to counter them (the kind Trumpism is destroying in the USA). Managerialism means that that such introducing such barely working systems is progress and the metrics that matter will be improved by them. Decision-making & shareholders will be protected from feeling any ill-effects and celebrate the success of such systems they’ve launched in minimum viable while they reap the benefits of hassle they’ve dumped on customers and staff.
First Published 20250218 08:25:34
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