IKEA Leangen — Local services in Trondheim

IKEA is IKEA, so I won't say much about the chain itself. This location is another matter though. Last time I was there, I asked someone working there pretty straightforwardly: "Does this sofa come in different colors?" I was asking to know the price difference. He replied "No, that's all we have." I literally stood there in front of him, in the store, pulled out my phone, and found the answer myself. "Hey, it says here that you have different options," to which he replies "Oh, okay, fine. I guess that's true. But you don't save much." I scroll for another second and: "But it says here that this one is 800kr cheaper than the one on display." Literally 15% cheaper. Just a vacant stare in response.

Moving into another section with beds, mattresses, and duvets on display, in Norwegian: "Do you have weighted blankets?" Puzzled look. Okay, let me try in English. The two people working now look at each other. Alright once more in Norwegian... One looks at his co-worker and asks "Do you understand what he's saying?". This entertainment continues for another minute until a light clicks for one of them: "Oh yeah, we have that, but it's in another department. We're mattress experts, we don't know anything about that." They didn't seem to understand the point when I noted out loud that there are blankets and duvets on display around us in literally every direction. Finally, I ask if they are on display in the section where they can be found. "Uhh, yeah, probably". A decent 5 minute walk later and there they are: bolted to the wall, so that you have absolutely no way of knowing what the hell you're buying. Not that it really matters, but only one weight was available to "test".

Tried to buy something online to avoid being here and I discovered that while it would cost over a thousand kroner to have something I want to pay 10.000 kroner for delivered to my home just 1.5km away, I have the "honor" of being able to pay 100kr to (ahem) do the work myself! Seriously? It costs 100kr to be able to pay thousands of kroner and then carry this freaking thing out the door myself?

Fine. Lucky for IKEA, they have a monopoly on plausible furniture. Congrats: you won by default, and by default alone! So how do I go about this? Well, the store is closed on Sundays and that's the only time I was able to rent a van. Seems odd to me that I would pay money for their "service" which would allow me to collect my own property, but wouldn't use that money to keep the lights on. Whose wages do you have to pay anyway? Clearly not their own employees--it's my labor and my time being used, after all! So I call the store to see if they can offer any suggestions or solutions. The person I spoke with cuts me off as I'm explaining, telling me that they "don't work in that department, so I don't want to say something wrong". I reply "Okay, I guess I'll figure something out myself", she says "alright" and then hangs up. If I ran a store and sunk a ton of money to brand myself as an enterprise that supports progressive causes and has good family values, i.e. were obsessed with public image, I wouldn't skimp on basic customer service, and I certainly wouldn't let a conversation with a customer end with "you're on your own", much less be the first to hang up the phone!

Hot dogs are good though. Not the vegan...

It’s an IKEA! A good point includes plant section which in many IKEAs has issues with those little blacks flys but not here.

No way to wrap plants though like at other stores.

The layout is pretty good and not too big, but many items are stored in the warehouse next to IKEA and you must wait a long time after the checkout to wait inline again to collect.

So this can be a day trip sometimes.

Child care is okay, but be aware there is a max of one hour which often may not be long enough if it’s busy.

Bathrooms are clean and child friendly with miniature toilets for toddler size humans.

Staff are friendly and mostly very...

Updated review; We've bought furniture for almost 100K at IKEA over the last year. Last month, we bought a big wardrobe, which, when opened, showed forklift damage and other pressed damages. We asked the help desk to give us new items. They said we could get 1 new part(which is only half of what we needed). They also said they would not deliver it without us paying for it. We tried to explain that we did nothing wrong, and they have helped us similarly before. But they said they have "updated" their rules and I will not pay 2000 NOK for a delivery of items they damaged... Sucks since I thought they were better...