Arnold
Tash Jayasinghe
CibbuanoWhy is IKEA so cheap?
April 21st 2008 07:19
If you're looking for real estate in Sydney, you're either so rich that you're going to buy whatever the hell furniture you want, as long as it's chic - or the new mortgage is going to break your finances, so you're planning to stay frugal on the furnishings.
Luckily, there's IKEA. I know, I know... IKEA is mass-consumed consumerism, fueling a billion-dollar industry. Well, we can't help that. What are you going to do?
The good things about IKEA are obvious: it's reasonably priced, it's functional, and it's flat packed.
The bad thing is that everyone ends up with the same living room.
Crave has an interesting article on "The Anatomy of an IKEA product", an examination of just how cheap IKEA can get, and how they got there.
For example, the above photo is of a chair joint. The article says:
"By making a small tweak in the angle of the chair's arm, she elaborated, the designers and packaging technician figured out they could get more of the chairs in a single shipping container, and that, in the end, meant a lower cost to the consumer.
"The arm (change) meant huge savings," she said.
That's the sort of tweak that evolves organically from the design process, and may be impossible to discover until the team is well past the conceptual stage.
"When you see something on paper, it looks great," Marston said. "But it's not until you touch it that you say, 'Aha, if you turn it this way, we could get 10 arms out of this length of wood instead of 7.""
"The arm (change) meant huge savings," she said.
That's the sort of tweak that evolves organically from the design process, and may be impossible to discover until the team is well past the conceptual stage.
"When you see something on paper, it looks great," Marston said. "But it's not until you touch it that you say, 'Aha, if you turn it this way, we could get 10 arms out of this length of wood instead of 7.""
All those pieces? Fit together to minimize space and cost. Small improvements in the design mean better use of materials and packaging, which mean more savings for you.
But IKEA gets it all, in the end. After all, who can go to IKEA and not get a plate of those Swedish meatballs? I don't even know what makes them Swedish - all I know is that a plate of 20 does me good.
Of course, I hate IKEA after the meatballs. Once I'm full, I'd rather just go look at the videogames in another store, not wander in the impenetrable caravan trail that makes up an IKEA store. Where are the exits? Would we all die in a fire? Why are all the books on the bookshelves about IKEA?
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