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I'm sorry, IKEA, but we're over

Let me get one thing out of the way before we proceed: IKEA and I go way back.

Our relationship began when I was in primary school and I needed my first desk. My mother and I trawled the IKEA catalogue, bookmarking the pages we liked most, choosing the style that would fit best with the rest of our (mostly garage sale and opshop-sourced) furniture.

As I progressed through high school my wants changed, and for my 13th birthday I was thrilled to get the IKEA armchair and double bed I was passionately convinced my teenaged bedroom needed.

Then, at uni and for the next decade or so, every trip to IKEA resulted in multiple unintended purchases – everything from those amazing $1.50 dishbrushes, to a wardrobe and chests of drawers, to both an indoor and an outdoor sofa, umpteen Billy bookcases and almost every single lamp I’ve ever owned.

What I’m trying to get at is, my love of IKEA is longstanding, deep and abiding. I love their meatballs. I love their mass-produced sense of whimsy. I love those fake living rooms and bedrooms at the stores, with their weird plastic TVs and blank-paged books. I love the fact that they’ve democratised good design, making it accessible and available to the masses. I love the fact that everything is so cleverly designed that I’ve never had an issue with putting their flat-packed furniture together. In fact, unlike basically everyone else on the planet, I actually love assembling flat-pack gear.

IKEA flat packs
This isn’t me, but it honestly could be. Nothing gives me more enjoyment than cracking open a flat pack. Picture: Getty Images

Or I did, until this week.

Two things happened that soured my lifelong romance with IKEA, possibly forever.

I went into one of their Sydney stores to look for some small children’s stools, and half way around the needlessly circuitous trek from one end to the other, I got cranky. It’s 2019, I thought. Why is IKEA making me come into this labyrinth of a physical shop instead of letting me buy it online like any other reasonable retailer?

Oh, sure, you can technically purchase from them online now – a feat IKEA Australia finally managed to implement nationally in 2017 – but you’re out of luck if you want to receive your items, no matter how small and no matter if they’re in stock locally, within three weeks. Yes, that’s right – three weeks.

Fancy a click and collect instead? That’s a $20 admin fee, thanks.

As I gazed around the store, I noted how few people were wandering its aisles compared with the festival-esque crowds that used to throng IKEA back in the day.

I noticed how unstylish and off-kilter its colour schemes and how inelegant its trying-to-be-quirky designs had become. Sorry, but children’s bedrooms, much less grown-up living rooms, don’t need to resemble a 1980s daycare centre.

IKEA bad colours
Yeah, nah. I’m all good on preschool-themed primary colours, thanks. Picture: Getty Images

And I thought about the fact that chic, good quality, bargain-priced homewares and furniture are now readily on offer elsewhere, both online and in stores that you don’t have to follow a set of arrows to navigate.

Kmart Australia homewares
You can pick up low-priced, on-trend furniture and homewares so easily from so many retailers these days. Picture: Kmart Australia

So there was that. And then, I went home and did some laundry, and decided to clean the slipcover of our five-year-old IKEA sofa, only to discover that underneath the fabric, the entire seat had come away from the frame (no wonder our backs have been hurting lately…). There were many raw staples visible. It was a bad scene.

Nasty IKEA sofa
That can’t be good. Picture: Supplied.

Looking on IKEA’s website, I discovered that the Kivik model is covered by a 10 year warranty, so, relieved, I rang the hotline, waited for 47 minutes to speak with someone, and was told that yes, it should be fine, they’d send someone out to assess the situation and here was my case number. IKEA’s stock went up in our household…

Until two days later, when I received a curt email telling me that my Kivik was purchased before the 10 year warranty was introduced, so was therefore not covered, and my case was now being closed, thanks for playing.

Nasty IKEA sofa
Just some exposed staples, no biggie. Did I mention we have a toddler? Picture: Supplied.

I rang the company’s national support centre again and waited for 52 minutes to speak with someone. He passed me onto a manager who explained that as far as she and IKEA were concerned, “five years is a reasonable time frame for a sofa such as the Kivik”. This is a sofa that, depending on the coverings and configuration you choose, can cost up to $2300.

I reminded the manager that Australian consumer law requires goods sold to be fit for their intended purpose. I also reminded her that IKEA’s own marketing materials say:

“At IKEA we test all our sofas and armchairs to be sure they’re durable. For example, we push 100 kilo weights onto the seat 50,000 times – and 30 kilo weights onto the back just as many times. We do all this to be sure the frames retain their stability and the cushions their resilience and comfort. The guarantees we give are proof that our sofas and armchairs can take being used often and for a long time.”

She was unmoved.

I don’t know about you, but to my mind, five years is not “a long time” for a $2300 sofa to last. And I realised I can’t expect an IKEA sofa to be high end, but I do think it needs to be functional.

And you know what? Again – it’s 2019. This isn’t ok. We already know it’s time to stop buying so much stuff, and the way to do that is for that stuff not to crap out after a few years. I’m sorry, but big pieces of furniture like a sofa need to have a life expectancy of longer than five years.

IKEA Kivik sofa
The Kivik sofa. Who’d have though something so innocent-looking could ruin an entire relationship? Picture: IKEA Australia

It is so, so wasteful for an item this large, which has been manufactured and shipped around the world and created from all kinds of materials, to be simply tossed out after such a short time.

Is it any wonder IKEA’s profits plummeted by $1.59 billion – yes, billion – last year? The retailer says it’s because they’re in the middle of a four-year process to overhaul their 75-year-old business model. If that’s the case, it’s not a moment too soon. Time will tell whether they can get their acts together fast enough.

In the meantime, I’m really going to miss those meatballs.

IKEA meatballs
I’m really going to miss you, IKEA meatballs. Picture: Getty Images

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