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Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

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Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#111

Post by imglorp »

apendleton wrote: post #56
smelendez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've installed Ikea kitchen cabinets before. The assembly is trivial (they're just boxes), and they all sit on a single rail you screw into the wall at the start. Lifting them into place takes an extra set of hands, but it's not high-skill work. This is not custom cabinetry or anything.

The hard part is most houses do not contain a single plumb, true, and square room. Walls do weird things, especially where they meet floors and ceilings. Floors are hard to get flat. Etc. I'd say once you resolve all this and get your rail level and parallel to the floor, yes, then throwing up the cabinets is the easiest part. After that, you probably want to learn how to do some molding to trim them in.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#112

Post by CamperBob2 »

kuschku wrote: post #105
dmix wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea why? I've never seen a store add them and then remove them.

Actually, lots of stores are removing self-checkouts nowadays. They tend to be a lot slower than cashiers, lead to more theft, and few people like to use them anyway.

One of those frustrating problems that's already solved, but in pieces too widely scattered to do anyone any good.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#113

Post by scotth »

PakG1 wrote: post #97
robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

Agreed. I'm not sure where the misconception of their furniture being difficult to build comes from. In my experience their instructions are unambiguous and well-designed.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#114

Post by on_and_off »

scotth wrote: post #113
PakG1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

Agreed. I'm not sure where the misconception of their furniture being difficult to build comes from. In my experience their instructions are unambiguous and well-designed.

I can't agree more, for the furniture I have bought, Ikea's instructions are pretty exemplary.

Without any written words, the instructions are very clear on how to assemble the furniture.

If you pay attention when reading them, it is not possible to make a mistake.

On the other hand, I have also bought from other RDA furnitures and have encountered some obscure instructions.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#115

Post by stephenr »

PakG1 wrote: post #97
robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

I wouldn't go so far as to say enjoy.

Unless you get one of the few pieces that are all steel (eg their kitchen wall shelves are quite good) or the even rarer solid timber pieces, its not really that great, it's just cheap (by western standards)

However I also find it weird that there are people who can't put together IKEA furniture. Then again, in Thailand everything that needs assembly will get you a "would you like that assembled (for free)?", usually in-store. This goes for furniture, gardening equipment, you name it.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#116

Post by stephenr »

anoother wrote: post #87
BowBun wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...unless you just bought $3K of furniture after a move and it only cost $49 to deliver downtown!

How do you manage to spend 3k in IKEA?

I wouldn't personally use IKEA in that case but an unfurnished house/apartment takes a lot of stuff to become usable.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#117

Post by ballenf »

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.

Ikea will take back (refund or replace) even the most pathetic attempt at assembly. I had one embarrassing fail and didn't expect sympathy and was really just hoping for a destroyed part replacement (even buying it). They just gave me a whole new unit no questions asked.

If the trip is worth your time.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#118

Post by arkades »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #7
ghaff wrote: post #2

I find it interesting how some types of personal service companies seem to resonate with people but a lot don't. I suspect TaskRabbit never really made it big because of some combination of transaction costs associated with one-off only somewhat standardized tasks and the fact that, presented with a bill to assemble cheap Ikea furniture or to pickup their laundry, most people will decide they'd just as soon do it the…

My personal theory is that TaskRabbit is too general purpose for people to think to use it. When I am at a bar and want to be at my house, it's really easy for me to think of an app that will solve my problem. If I don't have time to assemble the elaborate toy train set I bought for my kid, it will probably never occur to me that I could pay someone to drop in and do that task for me, even if I would happily pay some…

My personal issue with TR was price. Not that it was priced outside my ability to afford, but that it was priced out of the range of what is reasonable for the tasks that I would entrust to a never-met-before contractor. Eg, in a time-critical emergency I once paid a TR $45 to pick up a book from a store and bring it to a relative nearby, once (lots of context, just go with it.)

But let's be honest: it's a rare, rare event that someone is going to pay $45 for non-skilled, essentially un-fuckup-able jobs.

If TR was "hire a spare set of hands for minimum wage when needed, with quality reviews", sure, I could think of lots of use cases. But paying more than triple minimum wage for a minimum wage task? It's just rare that the situation merits that sort of over-spending.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#119

Post by seanmcdirmid »

psychometry wrote: post #52
robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

...or to pick up furniture at an IKEA location, since they're usually way out in the suburbs and shipping prices are exorbitant.

The ikea in Beijing is just next to 4th ring, and delivery is only like 1 or 2 hundred rmb, assembly is just another hundred RMB.

In the states, it is $49-$99, but don't even ask about assembly.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#120

Post by ghaff »

cptskippy wrote: post #94
adekok wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue there is that Ikea isn't owning the installation process. They should be making sure that they know who's doing the work, when they're showing up, etc. And then tracking that, so if one group of contractors has consistent problems, they can be fired.

That is what Home Depot did when my mom bought a kitchen from them. The kitchen designer managed the contractor through the whole process. It wasn't perfect but when problems arose she sorted it quickly.

On the other hand, I had a bathroom project through Lowe’s and they did very little managing. The contractor did a mostly decent job but he was impossible to reach and had a positive aversion to communicating his plans.
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