I don't know about the IKEA in IL, but the one here in Minneapolis tells you exactly what you need for the bed. I made the same mistake when I bought my bed from IKEA, but it was entirely my fault. I'm guessing that a lack of paying attention to the little hanging signs cost him most of this. I would not expect to get to the counter of a liquor store and have them tell me I need tequila for the margarita mix.

Phone loop, however: inexcusable. The very incarnation of Purgatory!

Ok, not blaming the consumer here. But I am puzzled.

Green Bay to Schaumburg is a 200 mile drive. 400 miles round trip. There's no furniture store with a cheap bed closer than that?

I am thinking he was going to Chicago anyway, and the Ikea was just a stop on the trip. Kinda takes some of the fire from the story.

Not that he isn't correct, and it was sad the store employees didn't inform him of the additional part. He had to make the purchase by telling them the item and the store rang it up. It wasn't like a quick scan-and-pay-and-walk transaction.

And ignorant that someone would at first tell him they can't send him the part.

Why would pieces necessary to make the bed sleep-able be considered a separate purchase? I just looked up the bed on the website and it says it comes in two packages. Ikea U.S. CustRel, I am confused by your assyness.

We have driven over 100 miles JUST to go to Ikea.

@Murph1908: My guess?
1: kid's bed = something you don't hang on to very long, quality not that important vs. price
2: huge, fun, showroom = something your kid will enjoy
3: decent prices
4: huge selection
5: excuse to spend some fun time with your kid
6: worth the trip.

@qcgallus: the liquor store analogy does not work here. It is reasonable to assume a customer buying margarita mix knows he needs tequila and has some at home and only needs the mix. What are the chances that an individual has a speciallty set of parts made for a particular peice of furniture just lying around the house?

I'd drive 100 miles out of the way not to go to one

1/2 the furniture in my house is IKEA. They have bookcases that are easily built, virtually idiot proof, and function exceptionally well. They're pretty good in the showroom at writing exaclty what you need for a particular build.

Good on them for fixing this, bad on them for the stupid CS rep's can't ship response.

@Spaceman Bill Leah needs a full-length puffy coat: Because IKEA beds are customizable. My bed, for example, is 3 separate purchases: the frame, the mid bar, and the slats. You can get different slats for a different comfort level, and I assume all their beds larger than twin require the mid bar.

I had been to an Ikea in 1998. I flew 1500 miles for work, then when I had time off, I drove 60 miles around the DC Beltway to get to Quantico. I spent 5 hours there. I've been to the Newark store, Oakland, and many others. When they built one in Minneapolis, I went on opening day. We lived 5 minutes from there, and would visit about once every 2 weeks. Most of my kids' furniture is from Ikea. Half of our kitchen is stuff from Ikea. I've worked at jobs where the all of the office furniture was from Ikea. It's inexpensive yet nice. I've never had a problem with them. However, they do run out of stuff. I called and did go through the circular call system, trying to find out whether something arrived or not.

Wow. 5.5 hours. And I complain about having to drive from L.A. to Burbank to go there.

ikea is about 45-50 minutes from me, and i'd still make ABSOLUTELY sure everything i needed is there before i left the parking lot.

i certainly feel the guy's pain, because it's really easy to miss something, like a second box for a single piece, or that something you assume is included isn't, etc. i have 2 sets of bookcases with doors, a 3 piece closet set, 4 dressers, 3 or 4 wall shelves and two large cube shelving units in my house from there and i've been lucky so far. my brother got all his kitchen cabinets from there and had to do a second trip over it one time because something was overlooked.

but i sure hope the guy had to pay shipping for the other part, because it's not ikea's fault that he drove all that way.

@plj: seconded. their stuff is way overpriced for what you get and with all their customer service problems of not including parts with items, or shipping couches with missing cushions, or shipping the wrong item altogether, it amazes me that people still pay top dollar for their shit.

@weakdome: Not to mention that Schaumburg is the shopping mecca of the region. I'm actually gonna be hauling my butt up there today (it's about an hour away from me). Seriously - if there's a store with local locations, there's one in Schaumburg. IKEA is worth the trip if you can also take your kid to the LEGO store and other fun places.

@weakdome: 7. Swedish meatballs!

@CaffiendCA: Like many others, you have become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct

@Murph1908: How dare you question a member of the Ikea cult?! From all of the purchases he made at the store, it's obvious he went specifically for Ikea.

Gag, Ikea cult is barely a step above Mac cult.

@acrobaticrabbit: You've either redefined "top dollar" or you're just trolling.

I defy you to show me a place that either
a) sells comparably fashionable furniture at a more competitive price, or
b) sells more fashionable/durable furniture at a comparable price

@plj: Me too!

Five years ago, before the Dallas store opened, we visited the Houston store to pick up, of all things, a bed. We returned from the five hour drive to discover that we were in fact.. missing a box of parts. We attempted to deal with the Houston store over the phone but to no avail. When the dallas store opened, we presented out case to their customer service department along with our receipt, and were given the box of parts we needed. We dug the bed out of storage and two years later, final slept in it.

For those of you who do not understand the Ikea shopping process, it is basically all up to the customer. The customer picks out what they want from the showroom and it is up to the customer to write down what is needed in order to pick it up in Ikea's warehouse. This sounds like it is entirely the customer's fault. Obviously it was a mistake, but this is in no way Ikea's fault, since their methods have worked for the million other cutomers they have served.

@VA_White: There's an IKEA 4 miles from me and I've never been inside it.

@Murph1908: Clearly you do not understand the awesomeness of Ikea.

that is one crazy long drive. kudos to you- you really love your daughter. and that is awesomeness.

What "WE"? Consumerist? Glad we could help? Did I miss something that implied you told him what to do to solve his problem?

I almost bought a bed from Ikea, but after seeing the multiple pamphlets that contradicted each other on what packages were needed, packages not being in the locations specified, and no floor worker able to tell me exactly what I needed, I decided to skip it.

@TheWraithL98: maybe slightly their fault. like he said, noone along the way mentioned he was missing any parts. it's crazy that they refused to send him whatever the stupid thing he was missing initially. i don't recall him saying he was unwilling to pay for it and shipping...

and an hour and a half total drive is nothing like 11 hours.

getting a big kid bed is a special thing. i'm willing to bet a bunch of his anger comes from making this giant effort for his little girl and then having to tell her she can't sleep on it because he missed a part, and he doesn't know when he can get the part, and just continue sleeping in the little girl bed indefinitely. To a young kid, it'll seem like he's withholding...she can see the bed right there! all after an 11 hour drive psyching it up. What a frustrating and disappointing day, especially after the endless loop phone call.

your compassion is enviable.

@Canino: FOR SHAME!!!

That is your homework this weekend. I expect a full report on Monday.

@wallspray: Maybe he learned how to write an EECB from Consumerist?

I just want to say that if you drove to Chicago from Green Bay for a bed, I hope you stopped in Kenosha at the White Castle on the way back.

Also, no, there is no closer place to buy a bed unless you can find one on craigslist or something.

@acrobaticrabbit: Seconded to CountryJustice. I got four chairs at Ikea a month ago and they were cheaper than somewhere like Target could offer, and they feel much more durable. Of the four, every single box had exactly the right number of parts. I also managed to find the PERFECT utility cart for an awkward 10" space in my kitchen, which nearly reduced me to tears of joy in the middle of the "It's our 780 square foot home!" display.

"After a nearly 6-hour trek to a nearly empty Ikea, Scott had to grab the name of the bed and attempt to pick it up himself at the 'furniture pick-up'."

Consumerist is unnecessarily sensationalizing stories:
Since when is the Schaumburg Ikea "nearly empty?" I was there a week ago and it is, as always, jam packed with people and merchandise, so much so that my wife will not even step foot in the place.

Also, anyone who's ever purchased a larger piece of furniture at Ikea knows that you have to pick it up at the furniture pick-up area after paying for it at the cashiers. At the Schaumburg store, it's just around the corner from the check out, and is not a hardship on the customer (except standing in line sucks). This is just the way Ikea does business.

Honestly, it takes away from the credibility of the story when details that do not illustrate any deficiency on the part of the company are pointed out as if they are faults that contributed to an epic fail on Ikea's part.

In this instance, the OP has two legitimate complaints: 1. No parts to build the bed & 2. Black hole phone tree. Those should be enough in and of themselves to make a blog post, without unfair bashing, or misrepresentation of facts.

@wallspray: Consumerist often has dialog with the poster before it gets posted. I imagine they gave the poster the EECB contact information as they are a wonderful resource for that sort of thing.

@calquist:
I lived in Indiana most of my life. I have been to THAT Ikea....after a Cubs game when I was on the North Side already.

I'll admit, I must not understand the awesomeness.

And like I said, I bet I could find a pretty cheap bed in Green Bay, and save myself 11 hours and a tank of gas.

All I am saying is if there were other reasons to go to Chicago, it takes the distance issue out of the argument. This still leaves plenty to post on Consumerist about.

@HFC: Somebody sounds bitter and jealous that he can't type on a MacPro sitting at a Fjodulicious desk.

A little off-topic: I always wondered why Ikea didn't put PDFs of all the instruction manuals online. There have been times where I haven't gotten the assembly instructions and have had to either figure it out on my own, or exchange the item entirely and get a new one with them included.

That, and I'm co-signing on the phone tree/IM mess. Either option is totally useless.

At an earlier point in my life when I was legally blind for the purposes of driving (but not for many other purposes), I got a ride down to IKEA one day to buy some stuff and one of the boxes that I got at the furniture pickup was wrong.

I got through to the service department at the store, and they had the right box brought out to me by 'messenger,' which I think might have been one of their employees dropping by on the way home from work.

They've always been really good about stuff like this, in the event that you can actually make it through to them. I'd guess the phone loop is more the problem than any lack of dedication to service.

I bought a $14 product at the Cincinnati IKEA a few months ago. It was missing a small part. I called IKEA corporate, who told me to call the store I'd visited. I explained to them that I lived roughly four hours away, so driving to get the part would be quite difficult. They mailed me the part, and I had it in my hands three days later. They definitely know what good customer service is, IMO.

These overly-familiar cutesy EECBs are so nauseating. I mean, "Aren't I the PERFECT Ikea customer?"? Excuse me? Keep it professional, these people aren't your friends. Just present the facts.

The key to shopping at Ikea is not to buy things that you have to put together.

@Triborough: I appreciate your sense of humor. The only things you don't have to put together yourself are rugs and spatulas. ;-)

@mizj: They do. Look under assembly instructions.

Additional source - ikeafans.com

@Necroscope: Because when you go to pick up your boxes after viewing them on the floor there are signs hanging above the boxes that say "you need this box too, located on this aisle, go get it"

The furniture pickup people should've had it ready for him, I agree, however its totally the OP's fault for not realizing what he needed for his furniture to begin with.

And driving 11 hours for IKEA crap (their shipping rates are horrendous too)? Come on, I'm sure there was a bed store in his hometown?

@admiral_stabbin: One still has to detach the tag on the spatula, though, so there's still some work involved. ;-)

Seriously, though, a couple months ago, there was one woman who was complaining to customer service about how she had to assemble a table herself. CS response was "did it not occur to you that this table was packed inside a flat box and it's nowhere near as big as what the built table would have been?"

(For the record, she was complaining about a Lack coffee table.)

@Spaceman Bill Leah needs a full-length puffy coat: Many Ikea pieces are like this. I was looking to buy a desk and would've had to purchase two seperate "flat-packs" to fully assemble my total desk.

That's just how Ikea works.

@VA_White: My parents drove 400 miles to come see me.. and go to IKEA. Then drove back.

@Meltingemail: I found a shelf in the exact same way.. its actually one of their table leg setups, but its an a-frame thing with a wide flat top, and its PERFECT for the space I wanted to fill.

@TinyBug: This is my favorite scene in the entire movie. And seriously, its just like walking into an IKEA store.

@Spaceman Bill Leah needs a full-length puffy coat: IKEA Co-worker here. All beds use the same midbeam, which cuts down on manufacturing costs (same midbeam vs different ones for each bed). When you buy it online, they ship it together (since the guys at the central DC can gather everything) and then charge you an arm and a leg, but when it's shipped to the store, it's cheaper to ship the midbeams all in one gigantic truck and beds in several different truck and then have you gather the parts yourself. Packaging the midbeam and the bed in one package means a) they have to be put together at the DC and b) they have to come on the same truck, which usually means they can't fit as much merchandise over the same amount of trucks. It's a cost-saving technique that is very easy to gloss over.