Fans of IKEA’s affordable Nordic-ish home goods have long endured the chain’s signature inconveniences — the endless-maze store design and the build-it-yourself furnishings.
Now the retailer is tackling the hammer-and-nails hassle by rolling out furniture assembly to more U.S. stores, the latest in a line of merchants layering on services to lure consumers in the door and offer something online shopping can’t.
Shoppers at a growing number of IKEA’s U.S. stores can schedule in-home assembly of their purchases via TaskRabbit, the on-demand platform the chain purchased in September 2017 in a bid to add convenience to the shopping experience.
TaskRabbit links shoppers with skilled “Taskers” to handle everyday needs such as furniture assembly, as well as home improvements and general handyman work.
The TaskRabbit service is currently available in six IKEA stores in San Francisco and New York City, and will expand to stores in Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Boston, Washington D.C. and more this year. The service is available online, where TaskRabbit services are located.
The price for TaskRabbit furniture assembly at IKEA starts at $36 and is based on a flat rate per item type, but excludes certain products, like the retailer’s kitchens and bathrooms.
Fighting Amazon With House Calls
IKEA’s move into services is an implicit bid to counter the encroachment of Amazon and home goods e-tailer Wayfair, which are gobbling up furniture market share, as shoppers become more comfortable making big-ticket purchases online. Furniture and home furnishings generated $42.6 billion in online sales in 2017, up 20.5% from the year ago period, according to eMarketer data.
It also comes as a cross-section of retailers cook up all kinds of ways to enhance the in-store experience via conveniences like free laundry machines at a Manhattan American Eagle store in a college-dominated neighborhood; pampering perks like manicures and tailoring at Nordstrom’s inventory-free store; and tech-enabled wizardry, such as Zara’s new augmented retail displays, where shoppers access product content and can even pay for an item by pointing their smartphones at special in-store surfaces in 120 of its clothing stores.
Zara’s push to enhance the physical shopping experience falls under the out-there-technology category, one with a wait-and-see, and no clear precedent on a return-on-investment, scenario.
But IKEA’s partnership with TaskRabbit aims to meet an ever-present unmet consumer need in its purchasing paradigm, furniture assembly, and has more in common with Best Buy’s push last year to add home consultations.
Today, 375 of the retailer’s salespeople make house calls to shoppers, offering them free electronics recommendations for their particular needs. The program appears to have paid off for Best Buy. Its average order value in test markets with home consultants has tracked 30% higher than comparable transactions in store, according to Telsey Advisory Group.
How IKEA’s $36 furniture-assembly push impacts sales remains to be seen. But according to a report from Euromoniter, consumers these days are craving a little post-purchase love. And retailers are testing ways to stoke it, hoping to nurture brand loyalty in a shopping climate where consumers have an embarrassment of riches at their fingertips.
“To satisfy and retain customers, more products and services come with a type of built-in offer of post-purchase assistance,” says the market research firm’s 2017 retail trend report. “This is linked to an emerging definition of convenience going beyond fulfilling customer needs to actually predicting them — including the post transaction period.”
