"Paramus, NJ or Elizabeth, NJ stores. Stay away from this places. Horrible experience, they have competitive prices but that's it. I'll tell you how they do it; they hired a bunch of kids from Paterson, NJ and nearby areas, no experience. Totally clueless, but DON'T take it out on them, it is upper management's fault. Basically, you have to fend for yourself, that's if you find what you’re looking for. Customer service missing in action. Oh! If you show up towards the end of the day, good luck. Good bye ikea, it was good while it lasted. I'll give the Long Island store a chance, they screw this one, and I’m done. I won't even try the online store base on the other reviews. China and India are taking over, or chinese and Indian ways (They charged us 5 cents per shopping bag), I should say. I'll be returning all the pieces of the puzzle I manage to gather while I was there including the 5 cent bags. Which of course the have missing boxes. "

"I went to ikea to pick up a few items and a wardrobe with shelves and a mirrored door. From the warehouse, I was given two long boxes and shelves. I asked the girl at the pickup place if these were what I ordered and she checked the receipt and assured me everything was right. So I take them home, the longer heavier box I assume was the wardrobe, the other being the mirror. I open the large box and put together the wardrobe that is inside. took an hour and a half, including gingerly navigating it through the apartment from the living room to my bedroom. I open the box for the mirror, only to discover that it's another wardrobe, and it's dark-stained. the one I ordered was dark-stained. the one I just put together was larger and not as dark. ok, so I never got my mirror I ordered and paid for. I called and got a nice person to listen to me and she created a service number for it.

This morning I get a call from the ikea in College Park, MD, where I picked up my items. I have to explain my situation again, and my complaint is that I never got the item I ordered. I'll be happy to come pick it up, but I cannot bring back the wardrobe I did not order, as it is too heavy for one person to haul around. she refused. she wanted to charge me $80 for having someone come to me to pick up the item they gave me by mistake. otherwise, she was going to charge me for that item. she wouldn't let me come pick it up without bringing in the other item. as I tried to explain that it wasn't my mistake that they gave me something I didn't order, and that I will fix my mistake of walking out without my mirror and pick it up myself...

she hung up on me.

so this hasn't been resolved at all and I can't get anyone from customer service on the line who can solve this. I left a message with the resolution line (extension 4009), and they haven't called me back yet. take-home message: bring duct tape with you and open your boxes to make sure you have everything, then tape the boxes back up and bring your stuff home. expect them to give you the wrong items. expect them to be idiots. do not expect any problem you have to be resolved."

"Absolutely the worst experience I've had with any oline retailer....and I've purchased from hundreds.

Called 12/14/06 and ordered a simple gift card for my mother. The lady took my CC number and expiration date and read it back to me correctly. She said the card would be sent via UPS and gave me a total. Great....should be easy....NOT!

I received a phone call the following Monday (12/18) from a lady named Danielle, the Declines coordinator. She explained that my CC had been denied and asked if I wanted to put it on another one. Knowing that there was no problem with my CC I declined and said I would call my CC company and verify then call her back. I called the CC company and they said that it was indeed declined twice on Thursday (why am I just hearing about it on Monday?) because they had entered the wrong expiration date. Duh! I called Danielle back and left a VM asking her to run it through and pay particular attention to the expiration date. Then I asked her to call me back.

Tusesday...no call from Danielle.

Wednesday....I left another VM for Danielle asking for an update.....no return call.

Today (Thursday) I called and again only got Danielle's voicemail. I zeroed out to get to an operator. I explained the situation to the guy who answered...he put me on hold several times...then explained that he could not cancel the order or push it through...that I had to talk to Danielle. He said that Danielle was out of the office today. So...reluctently, I left yet another VM for Danielle.

I then called back to complain to a higher up....after being placed on hold several more times I spoke with a 'Supervisor'...who I again explained my situation to. She advised that my CC was charged yesterday and that the gift card was shipped yesterday....what? and not even a 10 second call from Danielle to say it was shipped? She explained that Danielle was very busy with the Christmas season....apparently not busy enough to stay at work...she's off work today!

I am less than impressed with Ikea Direct....their Customer Service....or shoudl I say LACK of customer service is pathetic! It looks like I'm not alone after reading the posts here."

"One of the worst online ordering experiences I've ever had.
- After you place an order, nothing happens. No confirm email for days - they're behind, so several days pass until you even know that they got the order. Apparently it takes that long until they can round up enough gerbils to fire up the crank on the dial up modem and see that you've placed an order.
- There's no way to confirm that you actually placed an order - no My Account info online.
- They never provide any tracking info. So when your order never shows up, you have to call and have them track it down.

Shipping costs are brutal.

Do not even think about ordering from IKEA. If you can't get to the store, skip it."

"Ikea is the worst! Last weekend, my boyfriend and I rented a truck from Uhaul to drive 20 mins. to Ikea, the truck cost us about $70, when we got to Ikea we purchased over $600 worth of furniture. One of the items was the Malm bed (3 boxes), as soon as we got home and unloaded our truck and return it back to u-haul, we realized some of the parts of the bed was missing. Not to mention, we were also over charged for the flatware we purchased. We immediately called ikea and explained that we were missing parts from the bed. Ikea said, "sorry," and refused to have the items shipped to us. I explained to Ikea that we had just rented a truck and had no way of getting the parts home. Ikea still refused to take ANY responsibility for the parts being missing. For the next few days, my boyfriend and I have to continue to sleep on the floor, until we can rent a truck and return back to Ikea to pick up the remaining parts of our bed. I do understand that Ikea is a high volume store, and alot of people shop there on the weekends. I understand that people tend to pick-up things and fail to replace things in the correct location. However, we are extremely disappointed! I would have expected Ikea to take some responsibility for the missing parts. I wouldn't suggest that people shop their, it's extremely unorganized and the staff treat customer's unfairly.
Update:
This weekend, my boyfriend and I returned to Ikea to pick-up the missing MALM bed parts. As soon as we got home, we started once again, to assemble the bed ten minutes into the process we noticed that we were missing a HARA (a metal beam, that is sold separately). We returned back to Ikea to purchase the HARA. This time before leaving we asked, an IKEA representative are there any other parts needed for our bed? We explained to him, that we bought a bed a few weeks ago (and we plan to sleep in it sometime, in the very near future, like tonight( not in these exact words, we were very nice and wouldn't not take our frustration out on an innocent sales clerk)) and if there were any additional parts. Boy, I am glad we asked! You really have to check behind this place, and asked questions that may seem odd or redundant. Anyhoo, the sales clerk pointed out some wooden boards that support the mattress something like a box spring. I am very familiar with a box spring that stablizes the mattress, however the wooden boards threw me for a loop. I mean , do we suppose to just know this stuff? Sorry, I am use to the warning, "batteries are sold separately," meaning before you intend to operate this product another component is necessary. Be extremely cautions, when shopping at Ikea the place is an atrocious catastrophe!"

"Ordered 12/06/2005.Followed 12/13/2005 after no response from Ikea,received email from IKEA saying they couldn't process my order because of their computer goof.They said to call after 5:00 pm EST which Idi d 2times and waited 30 min both times.Woulnever oder again."

"Good low-end products and VERY poor service:

1) Ignored all emails including a complaint.
2) Responded to an order cancellation by sending a confirmation for the original order.
3) On phone hold for 1/2 hour + only to have their system hang up on me when transferred.
4) They take any response to a confirmation request to be a confirmation, i.e. they don't read the content.
5) They do not deliver their own stuff -- yet another opportunity for a disconnect.
6) Customer-generated communication is via a web form (there's no email address). Thus you have no way of proving you contacted them.
7) They don't give any delivery window when you order. Instead, you get a message saying they'll contact you in a week to tell you when they will deliver.
8) Delivery took three weeks on a non-backordered item."

"Easy ordering. That's about the only good thing.

Website does not indicate that shipping is calculated at a later time via contact with Ikea Customer Support. Very overpriced shipping through 3rd party shipping, usually not a name carrier like UPS or FedEX.

Phone Customer Service is slow, with lengthy waits to speak to a representative. Reps do not have all information regarding order (e.g. phone numbers of 3rd party shippers) or expected shipping dates.

Also, be prepared for extended wait times for orders placed on-line. My order, placed on 8/19/05 has yet to arrive due to being "in transit" to the shipper.

The shipping is also extremely expensive. My $199.00 computer desk (unassembled) cost $104.00 to ship. The shipping Co. used on my order "Urban Express" is actually a courier service. Unless you obtain the "transit number" from Ikea, the shipper has no information regarding the status of delivery.

The on-line "Talk to Anna" feature to contact Customer Service is a joke. A simply query like "What is the status of order XXXXX?" returns a message to call Customer Service.

Ikea does a tremendous amount of advertising and marketing to have customer use their catalog or order on-line. They fail to mention the tortured process involved when doing so.

Do yourself a favor - If you cannot purchase the item in person at the store or arrange to have a means to carry the items (i.e. have a large car or truck), pass on the Ikea on-line experience.

Update - I received a call on Sat. 9/3 indicating my delivery would be scheduled for sometime the following week. On 9/6 I received a confirmation call that my order would be delivered on 9/7. The order did arrive around 5 PM. All items ordered were successfully delivered, however the main box containing the desk had a huge amount of packing tape covering one corner.

I began to assemble the desk the following day and was crushed to find out that after waiting all this time, the desk set was missing all of the assembly hardware (screws, bolts, washers, etc.). Ikea's Customer Service was their usual help - as in no help. I was informed I needed to call them during normal business hours and speak to "Post-sales support" to inform them of the missing pieces.

I did get through to them on Fri. 9/9. When I informed them that the assembly hardware was missing, I got a snappy "Oh, so you're missing a screw." comment. I informed the young lady that all the screws and all other hardware were missing.

On the plus side, Ikea agreed to send me all the assembly hardware at no additional cost to me. The down side is they have no expedited handling to get the parts to me, with a minimum wait of 3-5 business days for delivery. Which mean that now, from my original order date of 8/19, I'm now going into the fourth week over this order.

Oh, and for those of you thinking "Just go to the store and get the parts." I can't. Since my order was placed on-line, I have to use the post-sales support. And even if I did purchase it at the store, I was informed that I would be expected to box up the unbuilt desk and return the whole thing for a replacement unit.

Although the desk, once built, will be great...getting this thing has turned into a nightmare."