IKEA Family is a membership program, like grocery store memberships. The only real feature of the program was their 5% discount. But now, they are getting rid of it to focus on “New Lower Price offers”. I’m not holding my breath that their prices are going to come down anytime soon.
IKEA Family is worthless now. They do offer “select delivery options” with no explanation on what this means.
Is this actually “shrinkflation?”
The phrase literally comes from product manufacturers who shrink the volume of their product and sell it for the same price.
This is basically a crappier loyalty program.
I think colloquially people have begun expanding use of the word to include anything where features or product are removed but the price stays the same.
Maybe there’s a better word for that, but I understand the parallel.
Isn’t this loyalty program free like many others?
You don’t pay cash for it, but it takes up your time and IKEA gets your data and is allowed to send you spam. So kinda free, but also not.
So the price stays the same
This is the worst 0 dollars I’ve spent
Lack tables are now 20% smaller
They were full sized tables but then Bobby dropped them
Dammit lil bobby tables, not again
That boy ain’t right
How am I going to fit my rackmount servers into it now?
This is the loss right here… those tables were perfect and apparently they no longer are. Sad day
Your Billy is 20% smaller.
Now it’s called Bill.
It’s actually sold in two parts now: Bill and Lï
So the tables are really lacking?
You’re joking, but they did change the design of the Lack tables about a decade ago to make more of the legs hollow. They were popular as diy home server racks, but the hollow legs make it more difficult to mount more than one or two units of space.
This program was to encourage you to be loyal by offering you discounts. Now that you’re loyal, fuck you.
I think this is just normal inflation, since it’s cost. I guess you could also argue it’s skimpflation.
IKEA profits are wayyyyy up this past year. So not sure why they’re killing off a successful marketing program.
Growth is not up to expectations
Well, getting rid of your return customer incentive program isn’t going to help growth.
Maybe not in the long run, but please someone think of the next fiscal quarter!!
Board and ceo says they need even higher margins, the billions in profit simply aren’t enough!
They realised that people were still coming as often with the specific items rebate program they have everywhere else and figured they should stop leaving money on the table in the USA.
That’s my guess.
They say cost is going down, in my local ikea website we didn’t have the royalty program like OP posted, but they did have price cut and all, not sure how long this will last.
Per Wikipedia:
shrinkflation, also known as the grocery shrink ray, deflation, or package downsizing, is the process of items shrinking in size or quantity, or even sometimes reformulating or reducing quality, while their prices remain the same or increase.
I can’t see how furniture could ever qualify as shrinkflation, unless we’re counting something like the use of crappier materials.
Your membership to the service is now worse off comparatively, so the benefits you receive have shrunk. Shrinkflation feels pretty apt here
That’s you paying more for the same thing: inflation. Shrinkflation would mean getting less for the same or more money.
OK, but the membership is free. So you’re paying with the value of your email and personal information.
Yea, if I’m understanding correctly, they are removing an employee benefit. Which is shitty, but the discount was pretty shit in the first place.
It’s not an employee benefit. It’s a membership thing that customers can sign up for. It was literally the only perk of it.
And other deals + free coffee during business days.
Return window was also bigger if you were a family member. At least where I live.
Hey now, you also got free shopping bags!
Hey, that’s unfair. Here in Germany we don’t get 5% discount with IKEA family. Just discount on a few select (changing) products and free coffee.
I am capable of drinking enough free coffee to equate a 5% discount.
Do you get free coffee at IKEA wherever you live?
There is no free Ikea coffee in Québec or Ontario.
The member card here gives access to some discounts (not a flat discount, but discounts on whatever thing they decided to put on sale) and an extended return window.
Same thing in Canada, I guess they’ll introduce the same model to the US.
That’s how it originally was in the US. I had it for years and it was absolutely useless, I used to complain about what’s the point of even having it if the only benefit was ONE return without a receipt per calendar year. You’re telling me you want to track all my purchases, but you can’t actually track all my purchases? Give me a break.
Then a few years ago they added free coffee, so it became worth it again. The 5% off thing is new enough I remember being surprised when I learned it.
I’ll argue that it’s not shrinkflation if the thing is free. It’s just them not giving you free stuff anymore.
Shrinkflation also has an element of being sneaky with it. Making the product cheaper or smaller without changing the price or packaging so that they can sneak the relative price increase past the customer.
This is them plainly telling the consumer that shit will be 5% more expensive now. That’s just regular old inflation.
Shrinkflation tend to be shrinking in quantity, but yes whilr ikea can’t shrink their furniture, they can shrink their quality. Whether they indeed shrink the quality it’s up to debate tho.
They did shrink their Expedit into the Kallax
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If you sign up for the free family program… Yes?
I bought a chair with a 10 year warranty just before covid. A part fell off. They refused to repair/replace, only refund. Went to repurchase the chair, was $50 more. No wonder they wouldn’t repair/replace. Ugh.
I used to work with this guy who moved from India. One day we were hanging out together after work and he told me that he’s importing some furniture from India. I asked about the cost shipping etc and he offered me if I want to buy any furniture from India and he’ll get everything in on shipping container and get it moved to Sydney. I bought 2 bed, 1 dining table, and few other stuff, I remember I paid around $1500 and those were the best purchases I ever made. Its now been more than 7 years and still running strong.
But you still get discounts on BLÅHAJs, the most relevant item the store sells anyways.
At least where I shop.
Blåhaj 🥰✨
Lemmy instance checks out.
Yes yes 😌☺️✨
blahaj is life
Sure is
🦈 💕✨🌸
Consider they’re a 30+ mile, hour+ drive away, this is giving me even less of a reason to go, and I happen to like Ikea. But free coffee isn’t going to remotely make up for my gas mileage, so I guess I’ll continue to shift my furniture needs elsewhere. =/
