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Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

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Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#191

Post by api_or_ipa »

skanderbm wrote: post #142

"Robots are coming for your job, but only if it is routine/systematic", says . What is more routine/systematic than assembling IKEA furniture?

Systematic if it's in a controlled and repeatable environment. Not so systematic if you need a robot to assemble your table in the middle of your living room. You can't achieve Ikea's scale by completely assembling everything in a factory because it increases shipping, storage and logistic costs-- not to mention complicating moving the furniture into your new home.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#192

Post by dmix »

kuschku wrote: post #169
dmix wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I've heard quite the opposite... Edit: according to an international study theft increased from 1-2% to 4% but 60% of the people polled said they only stole it because the item wouldn't scan. This seems to be a technical and UX problem. There is a lot of room for improvement with the machines and from my experience it varies by store. Otherwise 75% of people said it made their experience faster. I wasn't able…

> I wasn't able to find any evidence of 'lots of stores removing them' though... IKEA is phasing them out in Germany, and all German store chains that had self-checkout have since removed them, or are in the process. There is not a single chain that is actively deploying new ones, or keeping them.

Strange, quite the opposite experience here in Canada.

Our biggest pharmacy (Shoppers Drug Mart) and dollar store (Dollarama) both with thousands of stores are going to be deploying self-checkouts soon. Various grocery stores and big box stores all over the city already have it.

Ikea only has 2 stores in the area so even if they remove it it won't be that noticeable in terms of deployment...

It may be Imea is trying more of a customer service thing for certain stores ala Amazon's focus on human interactions vs actual ROI or popularity.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#194

Post by notyourday »

stephenr wrote: post #132
morgante wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you use?

There are a few things I like IKEA for (the aforementioned "Grundtal" kitchen racks work really well) but generally I prefer more individual furniture (watch Friends where Phoebe responds to Pottery Barn furniture if you want to understand better), and as I'm a little older, I prefer timber furniture (I had more steel/glass stuff when I was in my 20's), which is where IKEA fails hardest, because practically all their…

IKEA is replaceable furniture. You don't take it with you.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#195

Post by wink »

majewsky wrote: post #141
on_and_off wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you pay attention when reading them Ah, that's the problem. We all know that users never read the manual. :)

There's a difference between building "your one desk" and assembling 10 of them for the new company office. It gets old after a few hours :P

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#196

Post by snuxoll »

pcurve wrote: post #134
qq66 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

tbh I'd imagine most furniture wouldn't either. It's a one way trip.

Speaking from experience with a corner computer desk made out of MDF, yes - I'm amazed it survived being disassembled and moved at all, but it didn't make it the second time.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#197

Post by shostack »

bastawhiz wrote: post #131
imglorp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having someone else install your IKEA cabinets for you probably won't help with the quality of the installation if your house is a bit wiggly around the edges.

Perhaps not, but the hope is someone who installs this stuff for a living has encountered these situations enough to know how to handle them, whereas the average person who might try to install this on their own is likely encountering that for the first time.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#198

Post by mbrameld »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #149
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…

I think you are better off buying the stuff from Ikea then finding a good local contractor to do the work. Having said that, where I live finding a good contractor is harder than finding a good programmer.

*at the price you're willing to pay

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#199

Post by adamlett »

morgante wrote: post #129
scotth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not particularly difficult but nor is it particularly fun. I certainly don't plan to assemble the furniture for my next apartment myself.

It reads like you plan to get entirely new furniture when you move. What’s wrong with the furniture you already own?

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#200

Post by limelight »

adamlett wrote: post #199
morgante wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not particularly difficult but nor is it particularly fun. I certainly don't plan to assemble the furniture for my next apartment myself.

It reads like you plan to get entirely new furniture when you move. What’s wrong with the furniture you already own?

I don't currently own any furniture. For the past few years, I've been moving every month or two and never acquired any furniture.
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