IKEA To Buy Back Used Furniture In Recycling Push (bbc.com) 42
Last week, the BBC reported that IKEA, the world's biggest furniture business, is planning to launch a scheme to buy back your unwanted furniture you no longer need or want. From the report: Under the plan, it will offer vouchers worth up to 50% of the original price, to be spent at its stores. The "Buy Back" initiative will launch to coincide with Black Friday. "By making sustainable living more simple and accessible, Ikea hopes that the initiative will help its customers take a stand against excessive consumption this Black Friday and in the years to come," it said in reference to November 27, when lots of retailers offer discounts on their products.
The international scheme will see customers given vouchers to spend at Ikea stores, the value of which will depend on the condition of the items they are returning. Customers must log the item they wish to return and will then be given an estimate of its value. "As new" items, with no scratches, will get 50% of the original price, "very good" items, with minor scratches, will get 40% and "well used," with several scratches, will get 30%. They should then return them -- fully assembled -- to the returns desk where they will be checked and the final value agreed. The offer, which will run in 27 countries, applies to furniture typically without upholstery, such as the famous Billy bookcases, chairs, stools, desks and dining tables. Ikea said that anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Ikea plans to have dedicated areas in every store where people can sell back their old furniture and find repaired or refurbished furniture.
The international scheme will see customers given vouchers to spend at Ikea stores, the value of which will depend on the condition of the items they are returning. Customers must log the item they wish to return and will then be given an estimate of its value. "As new" items, with no scratches, will get 50% of the original price, "very good" items, with minor scratches, will get 40% and "well used," with several scratches, will get 30%. They should then return them -- fully assembled -- to the returns desk where they will be checked and the final value agreed. The offer, which will run in 27 countries, applies to furniture typically without upholstery, such as the famous Billy bookcases, chairs, stools, desks and dining tables. Ikea said that anything that cannot be resold will be recycled. Ikea plans to have dedicated areas in every store where people can sell back their old furniture and find repaired or refurbished furniture.
Re: (Score:2)
How about you go and FUCK yourself?
I'm sorry but why not donate to Goodwill? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
They want you to drop it off fully assembled, which means unless the item is very small or you have a sufficiently large vehicle you will find this quite difficult. Imagine trying to transport a bed in a typical family car?
The selling point of ikea was flat pack furniture, it comes in pieces and you assemble it yourself at home. When disassembled, most items fit in a car.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't make sense to pay shipping costs for an item that can go to the local Goodwill or Salvation Army that they can sell for a few dollars!
Agreed, shipping costs are an issue for those of us without an Ikea nearby.
Moving assembled Ikea furniture is also a challenge. While lots of it can be taken home from the store in a smaller car,, by one person, thanks to the packaging, once assembled, you need a truck or van, and extra hands, to move it. Particleboard is heavy, somewhat fragile and easily damaged if not handled carefully, and secured properly, during transport.
One seldom mentioned small bonus to donation: often includes free pick-up (espec
A sequel? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh shit, they also give you convoluted instructions to disassemble.
Re: (Score:2)
Typically Ikea furniture will eventually self disassemble.
Re: (Score:1)
NASA term for rocket explosion: "rapid unplanned disassembly"
Re: A sequel? (Score:2)
Seriously, only Americans could come up with a meme on how those assembly instructions are "hard" and "convoluted". (Instead of just them being stupid.)
How do you even get a job with that attitude? Could you even flip burgers?
Your grandparents managd to get to the moon, like it's nothing. Don't give them a heart attack from seeing the failures you have turned into, just so they can spin in their graves...
Re: (Score:2)
Participation trophies, and education that stops at the lowest common denominator so that all can progress to the next grade level is how.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually I find them a mixed bag. Some instructions are well-done, others lousy. Maybe the second set was created on Mondays.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously though that could be the biggest issue people have - once assembled the furniture is too large to easily return to the store. Unless they accept it hacked to bits... Which isn't ideal for recycling.
Redundant! (Score:1)
Re: Redundant! (Score:1)
Yeah, and what do you think they want to recycle them *from*? :)
The dark side of the recycling program (Score:4, Funny)
An IKEA employees' union is filing a complaint that many of their members working on the recycling jobs are now suffering from PTSD. They have been subjected to countless hours of staring at wordless fuzzy diagrams filled with confounding arrows, dashed lines, and images of camlocks. To make matters worse, they have been forced to work *backwards* from the end, which is totally unnatural. And after all this, on almost every piece, some hardware parts are still inexplicably missing. The stress is just too much for most workers to take.
Re: (Score:2)
To make matters worse, they have been forced to work *backwards* from the end, which is totally unnatural
You clearly have never assembled IKEA furniture.
Re: The dark side of the recycling program (Score:1, Funny)
You Americans manage to put "We are so completely retarded that we cannot even assemble IKEA furniture WITH instructions, and make our moonlandig grandparents hang their heads in shame over the failures we have turned into" into such beautiful words...
It's like seeing a severly mentally disabled child find joy in failing to put the square brick in the round hole. You don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
Return assembled??? (Score:4, Informative)
A big reason people buy flat pack furniture is that assembled it's too big to fit in most vehicles.
I envision people devoted to getting their store credit tying up the return area reassembling items that they had to break down to transport. What a mess to get a bit of store credit back. (Plus however great shape it was before you broke it down and reassembled it it'll likely be scratched and wobbly afterwards.
I get that the returns desk can't properly assess the condition while it's unassembled; but this sounds like it's a nice PR announcement while being designed to be too annoying for most people to actually take advantage of.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not surprising.. they want to make it not SUPER convenient, and this also ensures that things were working and correctly assembled with the all the parts before returning.. (hard to do that with flat pack). So I get why they do this..
Re: Return assembled??? (Score:1)
Yes, this was my first thought too.
Seriously ... just put it on Craigslist or whatever ...
Re: (Score:3)
A big reason people buy flat pack furniture is that assembled it's too big to fit in most vehicles.
Exactly why they offer the buyback: like the lifetime guarantee on medical implants, very few people will actually return the products.
This isn't remotely "Green" or good in any way (Score:2)
Using the word "recycling" is a distraction from what this is: These are all good-to-great condition furnitures, so if Ikea didn't "buy them back" they would likely be filling the living rooms of poor people buying 2nd hand. Instead of that happening, IKEA "recycles" while those people now must acquire furniture somewhere else which IKEA knows nothing about. RE-USING is better goal than RE-CYCLE here, all IKEA is doing is getting return customers and "greening" it's image.
Re:This isn't remotely "Green" or good in any way (Score:5, Informative)
Ikea plans to have dedicated areas in every store where people can sell back their old furniture and find repaired or refurbished furniture.
It looks like they do plan to resell furniture which is in good or restorable condition, and only recycle furniture which is returned in very poor condition.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess that's better while still money-grabbing into what could be community recirculation at maximum efficiency with plenty of people happy to ignore minor "restorable" scuffs or whatever in exchange for cheaper price which IKEA would be profiting off atop costs of the whole operation. I also assume plenty of people would be happy living with the furniture that may not be able to profitably restored/resold by them so will end up "recycled".
Some stuff does get broken beyond repair, and recycling materials
Re: (Score:3)
It depends on the prices they charge, how much they pay for the used items, and at what level of damage they consider an item beyond repair and send it for recycling.
While reuse within the community may in some cases be preferable, returning the goods to ikea potentially reaches a wider audience. People generally live in communities with a similar economic background, so those living in affluent communities may not know anyone who would want their old used furniture while those living in less affluent commu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: This isn't remotely "Green" or good in any wa (Score:1)
s/oit/out/
s/need crap/new crap/
Ikea Equals Landfill (Score:2)
But, I see so much particle-board furniture gets thrown away out there. I own IKea Malm Furnature. The Particle b
Re: Ikea Equals Landfill (Score:1)
I've got great speakers, a good amp, a proper office printer/scanner, special corner kitchen furniture, and a apparently unused $3500 custom-built leather couch in a perfectly matching color from the heaps in front of houses that the trash collectors were supposed to pick up the next day.
My buddy makes expensive designer lamps from the "trash" he finds the same way. Sells them at 3-4 figures a piece!
So it has nothing to do with being poor. More wo
ith being smart amd crafty. And sustainable.
Re: Ikea Equals Landfill (Score:1)
P.S.: Apparently I'm still not smart and crafty enough for the batshit insanity of smartphone UIs. (Especially teensy-tiny imaginary buttons with no haptic feedback on a low-refresh-rate touchscreen, and no preview in the /. mobile UI.) Hence the typos.
"Simplicity" MY ASS!
Cumbersome and limiting, more like!
No complaints here? (Score:2)
If this was Apple, the outcry would be gigantic, because it would be perceived as a method to drain the second-hand market to sell more new stuff.
PS. Why TF is that news for nerds, stuff that matters?
Impossible to put together twice (Score:2)
Pricing is dishonest (Score:1)
hope it reduces garbage in the NL (Score:1)
I move to the Netherlands a couple of years ago.
A thing that often surprises me is the amount of used furniture that people abandon on the streets to rot, and later be picked up on garbage day. It's one of the most wasteful things i ever seen. I have found even a mini-fridge and a 4-seater sofa on the streets once.
I already managed to home two garden chairs out of it, and some other small pieces of furniture.