Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, if you are looking for something that is not particle board.
Are you sure? IKEA has quite cheap solid wood furniture.
And it still seems to last a single move. I hate this disposable culture.
Nebraska Furniture Mart
71–77 of 77 posts
Re: Nebraska Furniture Mart
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps that illustrates just how little value we've really added during the last few decades of "improving" business systems...
I derive great value from ordering online and picking up in store, as well as stores that show me inventory and item location.
Catalogues weren't much different many years ago. The fact that sears totally missed the boat on e-commerce is nothing short of astounding.
Re: Nebraska Furniture Mart
#73I have no idea why this is on the front page of Hacker News but I'm not hating it. I moved from Omaha to the Denver/Boulder area two years ago and besides the Henry Doorly Zoo, I miss Nebraska Furniture Mart the most. NFM is a great place to buy pretty much anything you want to put in your house. Mrs. B really knew how to make a business work. The only weird thing is how antiquated their computer systems are, it's am…
> The only weird thing is how antiquated their computer systems are, it's amazing they are so profitable with 70's era technology running the business. I live near and have shopped at the largest of their locations many times and all of their associates carry tablets to close sales right there on the floor. Hardly 70s technology (though the UI they use isn't modern necessarily). Their online presence isn't anything s…
They also have those auto-updating e-ink price tags on everything.
Re: Nebraska Furniture Mart
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I derive great value from ordering online and picking up in store, as well as stores that show me inventory and item location.
And yet, theirs can, and does!
I doubt they are doing it with 70s technology. The point of my comment was to demonstrate the improvements since the 70s have added a lot of value to customers, especially the fact that I can compare prices around the nation and even world within minutes.
Re: Nebraska Furniture Mart
#75I have no idea why this is on the front page of Hacker News but I'm not hating it. I moved from Omaha to the Denver/Boulder area two years ago and besides the Henry Doorly Zoo, I miss Nebraska Furniture Mart the most. NFM is a great place to buy pretty much anything you want to put in your house. Mrs. B really knew how to make a business work. The only weird thing is how antiquated their computer systems are, it's am…
I'm guessing that Mrs. B. was smart to stay out of the Denver/Boulder area. The Furniture Wars were fought in those foothills. You can still see the corpses of Weberg and Levits stores all down the interstate. Jake Jabbs took no prisoners.
Now, in addition to Jake's American Furniture Warehouse, there's the whole Furniture Row business holding the territory. Now IKEA is trying to find a way in.
Whole books have been written about the Furniture Wars! It's kind of crazy.
Re: Nebraska Furniture Mart
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a door showroom in Chongqing that's so big you drive through it and look at all the doors on offer. Yes, you drive through it in your car and look at housing doors of all types.
That is really worth a Google. Must require some ventilation. Totally mad.
Re: Nebraska Furniture Mart
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why change a perfectly working system your customer does have no direct interaction with? Because you can't buy replacement parts when something breaks?
Seems like you're making quite the leap in assuming they can't buy effective replacement parts.
I'm proposing a reason, that's all. I imagine whatever antiquated electronics they use are readily available at their scale on eBay. Like if I want a Commodore 64 for some reason, I can probably have one tomorrow. But if I need a thousand of them, that will be more difficult. Compare that to AWS, where if I need a thousand of their computers I can have them in 20 minutes.