Did IKEA Destroy Carpentry And Woodworking?! (“THE IKEA EFFECT”…What It Means For Tradespeople) by the Honest Carpenter
Carpentry Work
Carpenters tend to drive a lot to do their work or to set up more work. They are driving to people’s houses, walk through with what the customers plans, take measurements, and usually don’t get paid for any of that. This is what we call pro bono time that the carpenters put in as a convenience to the clients.
Custom Trim Carpentry and Woodworking
Custom build-ins, benches, tables, cabinets, shelves, and all the big trim accent pieces make a house look so good. This place is always been the hallmark of great carpenters. There was a time I love doing customs build-ins, I would take any project that came my way large or small. But something went horribly wrong. There was a sea change in the carpentry world which I call The Ikea Effect.
The IKEA Effect
Usually, there will be a call coming from a customer, where they heard I am a good carpenter and they want me to come over and give them an estimate. Then I will go to their house, fight through the traffic and spend the hours to reach the customer’s home.
Once I arrive I will start with the conversation. They want this, they want that, I take a little measurement and computation then I ask them “what would be your working budget” and they will say $1,000. At that point, my heart would drop. I take a minute to collect myself and I’d say that is not enough to cover your materials. And let them know how much would be the cost of the project they wanted to build and they will just say “how can it be that much?, our IKEA Cabinets only cost a hundred dollars a piece” And that’s what we call the IKEA Effect.
It might be like an unfortunate event but when it happened to you so many times you will realize it is not a coincidence this is an epidemic.
IKEA Where does the profit come from
Ikea is an experience that goes beyond normal shopping. It’s an utterly massive retail operation that covers modern home furnishing from dishes to the entire kitchen.
Ikea’s prices are absurdly low. You might be thinking how can you manufacture, ship, store, stock, and sell stuff and the lowest price and still make a margin?
Almost none of their items are durable. Furniture and cabinets in particular are prone to degradation, just moving them around too often is sometimes enough to break them. Everything is made of a low-grade particle board and just glossed over and made attractive with the shiny laminate and smooth simple lines.
Customers don’t even receive these things fully constructed. It shows up at your house in flat boxes straight from the factory and has to be assembled.
I am a fan of great businesses and Ikea is an extraordinary business providing incredible service to people. But to put it bluntly, Ikea has effectively destroyed people’s understanding of what it costs to build something.
Custom Made Projects
Projects that are made by carpenters usually take longer and last possibly a lifetime as it is strongly built by hand and was built from scratch and will be transported to you and will be installed by us. It was engineered based on the customer’s request with real-world physical circumstances allowed.
Ikea didn’t invent the world of disposable goods and they are not trying to make life difficult for artisan builders out there but one of the bizarre net effects of their success is that skilled tradespeople everywhere have become more stressed out and more undervalued.
In reality, custom carpentry and woodworking tend to be very expensive far more expensive than people seem to anticipate these days but it’s worth it.