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Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

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Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#61

Post by mcx »

justboxing wrote: post #46
jagger27 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TaskRabbit was cheaper than IKEA's own build service?

IKEA is almost always cheaper, but the service is horrible. They outsource the build service to local contractors and it's a hit or miss, mostly miss. I bought a closet from IKEA and arranged the service through them. They sent 3 dudes who couldn't speak a word of english. On top of that, the 3 dudes got mad that there was no parking in San Francisco and left. So I had to call IKEA again and get them to come on a Sun…

Agreed, the logistics company IKEA uses - North American Logistics Group is the worst.

A table top got damaged so they had to get me a new one and they said I should call them to reschedule. It was impossible to reach anyone. Even talking to IKEA CS on the phone was clueless as to what to do.

I finally just sent a DM to IKEA customer service on Twitter and they got everything sorted out. So if you need help just message them on Twitter.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#62

Post by mv4 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #23
Spooky23 wrote: post #14

Judging from my Ikea kitchen delivery experience, I fully expect to have some dude with $20k in cabinets tied to the roof of his Honda shop up at people's houses.

Holy cow, you spent $20k on Ikea kitchen cabinets? Edit: Wow, you guys are touchy. For $20k you could get fully custom cabinets from a local shop made with cabinet-grade plywood for a typically-sized kitchen.

My IKEA kitchen was around 12k plus appliances, and it's quite nice. We installed it ourselves though.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#63

Post by jrowley »

KerrickStaley wrote: post #60
justboxing wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IKEA is almost always cheaper, but the service is horrible. They outsource the build service to local contractors and it's a hit or miss, mostly miss. I bought a closet from IKEA and arranged the service through them. They sent 3 dudes who couldn't speak a word of english. On top of that, the 3 dudes got mad that there was no parking in San Francisco and left. So I had to call IKEA again and get them to come on a Sun…

Personally I build IKEA furniture myself. It's very straightforward and often pretty fun.

Plus if something isn't right, you really only have yourself to blame, which is nice.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#64

Post by thespace123 »

iagooar wrote: post #29
thespace123 wrote: post #21

Wow, is this the first React-Native success story? As far as mobile app startups are concerned?

Sure. React Native made them have a great business model that covers a niche and solves a real problem. Thanks to React Native they could negotiate a better deal with Ikea. Sigh.

Obviously I didn't mean THE contributing factor to their success but it sure as hell saves a lot of money in development costs. ;)

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#65

Post by CodeCube »

baldfat wrote: post #38
aoenstkn4nto wrote: post #20

I hope this improves IKEA's absolutely awful installation experience. I recently did some kitchen cabinets, and while the people who did the actual install were great, everything about the experience was awful. IKEA contracted it out to Traemand, who sub-contracted it out to a local company. The local company was really hard to get ahold of and kept losing paperwork and not scheduling things. Once they did schedule s…

That is why they bought TaskRabbit is my guess. With TaskRabbit the whole service should be streamlined to just Ikea and the installer?

yeah, except they're probably just going to use it to streamline their operations ... in order to schedule logistics with their existing contractors ;)

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#66

Post by burger_moon »

justboxing wrote: post #46
jagger27 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TaskRabbit was cheaper than IKEA's own build service?

IKEA is almost always cheaper, but the service is horrible. They outsource the build service to local contractors and it's a hit or miss, mostly miss. I bought a closet from IKEA and arranged the service through them. They sent 3 dudes who couldn't speak a word of english. On top of that, the 3 dudes got mad that there was no parking in San Francisco and left. So I had to call IKEA again and get them to come on a Sun…

This sounds similar to their home delivery service which is awful. The guys dragged my mattress through mud in the yard and wanted cash to bring it to the bedroom because they said they were only responsible for getting it into the house.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#67

Post by qq66 »

jrowley wrote: post #63
KerrickStaley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I build IKEA furniture myself. It's very straightforward and often pretty fun.

Plus if something isn't right, you really only have yourself to blame, which is nice.

Plus, you can build it "right" (wood glue on all joints, extra corner braces, etc.) It makes it impossible to disassemble but I find that IKEA furniture doesn't handle disassembly and reassembly that well anyways.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#68

Post by aoenstkn4nto »

smelendez wrote: post #27
thebrettd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here...IKEA might still be great for you as long as you avoid all the subcontracted installation services? Unless you don't know or care to turn a screwdriver, I guess! :)

Not OP, but I'm fine putting together basic IKEA furniture but don't think I would try to install kitchen cabinets myself.

Yeah, it's exactly this. My spouse has a chronic condition which precludes them helping me, and I'm also not great at detail work (especially if it involves heavy labor like lifting things). I would inevitably end up having it be just slightly not level, and it would bug me for the rest of my days. :-) I also have other things to do and would rather pay someone to do it for me. When I was younger I might have tried to do it myself, but no more.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#69

Post by devy »

Perfect marriage. Our office furnitures are mostly from IKEA and we hired a guy from taskrabbit to assemble two dozen desks and cabinets, it literally took him 3 work days to build them all but the quality was pretty good!

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#70

Post by emodendroket »

jrowley wrote: post #63
KerrickStaley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I build IKEA furniture myself. It's very straightforward and often pretty fun.

Plus if something isn't right, you really only have yourself to blame, which is nice.

That's kind of a double-edged sword.
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