Why Is IKEA Shipping So Expensive? Furniture Shopping

Furniture shopping is the final and one of the most crucial steps of becoming a homeowner. You need to consider each piece carefully and get high-quality furniture. Furniture shopping will come after the construction, so you might be running low on cash.

IKEA has been a great choice for most homeowners looking for furniture. They have a lot of DIY products that customers love, but it comes at a price. 

IKEA has significantly higher shipping rates than other retailers. Let us take a closer look and see why this is the case;

Why is IKEA shipping so expensive? 

The main reason for IKEA’s high shipping fee is to reward customers who get a lot of products. The highest IKEA shipping fee is $49 on any order, regardless of how big your order is. 

If you buy many products, the cost will be significantly less than other shipping options. This system encourages people to save up and buy items in bulk, making the company more profitable.

How To Reduce IKEA Shipping Fees

IKEA has amazing products, and they often come at an affordable rate. The problem is that the shipping cost is much higher than other retailers. 

IKEA doesn’t offer free shipping, but there are tricks you can use to lower the shipping cost. Let us get into it;

1. Wait and make orders in bulk.

If you want to shop at IKEA, look at everything you need and get them all at once. You can make the order if it is furniture like beds or sofas. It is better to pile up other items. IKEA offers three options for shipping, and they charge per order. 

You will pay $5.99, $49, or $69, depending on the type of delivery you want. The amount of items doesn’t matter; the price is the same. Therefore, you will reduce the shipping fee if you get a lot of stuff.

2. Buy IKEA items on Amazon.

You can get most IKEA items on Amazon, which can be a big advantage for Prime members. You can get free 2-day shipping if you have a Prime account or use a trial account. This will give you the bonus of accessing movies and TV shows.

If you don’t want to set up an account, you could pay Amazon’s shipping fee, less than IKEA’s. Additionally, you will get free shipping with Amazon if you spend more than $25 on IKEA items.

3. Use IKEA’s click and collect service.

IKEA’s click and collect service allows you to order products online and later collect them. You can choose the date and location of the pick-up. Add your product to the shopping cart, then select click and collect at the checkout.

You will get a list of the participating stores, and you can choose the one you want. It will take about ten days before you can pick up the order, and you will get an email for this. This works best for someone with a truck since it will be cheaper.

4. Shop during IKEA’s major sales

IKEA has several major sales annually, including black Friday. You need to keep a close eye on IKEA’s website to see any potential offers. Sometimes you will get offers of up to 20% off on sofas and other furniture. 

There isn’t an offer to reduce shipping fees, but the money you save will cover shipping and more. 

If you can get 15% off on a couch and bed, it will be enough to cover shipping. Buying items in bulk at such times will make the money you save even more.

5. Using IKEA’s free shipping promo codes or FedEx

IKEA gives its customers free shipping coupon codes. You can use these to get your deliveries on time without paying the usual shipping fees. 

These coupon codes are rather hard to get your hands on. You might need to look for them through other offers websites.

You can also pick up your order at the nearest FedEx store. This service is available for most people, but some locations don’t have it. If you don’t have a FedEx location in your area, the option will not come up when you check out.

This option is not free. You will need to pay $3.99, but it is much better than $49 or $69.You will incur an additional cost when moving the product from FedEx to your place. 

Keep this in mind and select this option if it is more convenient than IKEA shipping.

How IKEA Gets Customers To Impulsively Buy

Research estimates that more than 50% of consumer spending is unplanned. Sometimes it is things you forgot to put on your list. 

But most of the time, it is impulse purchases where you see something and decide to buy it on the spot.

The store’s design can affect customer satisfaction which can cause impulse buys. Victor Gruen used lighting and space to stage items in store windows. The designs captured passerby’s attention and made them buy.

Most retailers retained this and improved it, making you lose track of what you went in to buy. They create an environment that makes you buy things you don’t need; they do this by building excitement. 

When people are excited, they are more likely to buy. Many purchases are dependent on emotions, and IKEA has invested in this. This comes down to how the store will present the products to its customers.

The layout is one of the most crucial factors in this topic. IKEA pays attention to how its floor space affects customer

 behavior. 

Grip layouts are good for convenience, but freeform layouts allow for exploration. Customers walk through more store parts. Racetrack layouts generate a loop that will keep a customer around a certain product type. 

IKEA uses a path through many of the product displays. This increases the distance a customer travels in a store and increases the products they see.

As a shopper, the more you walk around the store, the more products you see. The organization might steer you in a different direction from what you need. You will get products with offers or nice aesthetics, and there is a high chance you will buy them.

Why Is IKEA So Cheap?

A chair, a bookshelf, a pillowcase or a fork, whatever you want, IKEA probably has it. You will need some assembly, but it is all part of the IKEA fun. IKEA has grown popular and quickly become the first choice for many households. 

Their approach to interior design focuses on DIY and cheap products. When you walk around an IKEA store, it is hard to think how they can make so much money. IKEA’s low prices and sleek designs are why customers like them.

So with all these positives, how does IKEA manage to remain cheap? Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s deceased owner, is part of the reason behind IKEA’s pricing. 

Ingvar was very cost-sensitive despite his massive wealth, and these values affected IKEA’s current structure.

His dream for IKEA was to create minimalist, low cost and practical products for their customers. 

IKEA achieves all of these goals in several ways. IKEA buys raw materials in bulk, which helps lower the prices.

They flat-pack all the materials, so they take less space. This means that IKEA can store more products in one place and spend less on shipping. Shipping and storage are two areas where retailers lose most of their money.

Another point for retailers to lose money is assembly, but IKEA doesn’t have to deal with this. They move the assembly to the buyer. This cuts down on their manufacturing cost as they push the time and effort to the consumer.

The key to IKEA’s cheap products is the knowledge of how to cut corners. They buy products at a lower price, saving their cash and increasing profits. They manufacture the products, but they don’t assemble them, so they can still flat pack them.

This makes it cheaper for them to move and store the products. They need less storage space which means they pay less rent and taxes. They incur lower shipping costs, and the consumer will pay for the shipping at higher rates.

This makes them make more money on shipping that other companies don’t. Combining all these features allows IKEA to sell its products at low prices without losses. This explains the high shipping prices and low item prices.

Conclusion

IKEA needs to get more people to buy items in bulk since they will make more profits. Their high shipping rates are an incentive for most people to buy many items. The price remains the same, so you will save money by buying a lot from them.

This is one of many tricks IKEA uses to leverage customers and get them to buy more. They have a creative economic structure that helps them cut costs. 

This opens a gateway for them to make more profits. More profits give space for lower pricing, which attracts more customers.