IKEA Hammersmith — Local services in London

I ventured yesterday for the first time to IKEA´s new branch in Hammersmith, as it is local to me, where I ordered and paid for a white dining chair as a birthday treat to myself, to go with my office desk. I wanted it in Mustard Yellow, as it was on display at their store, but they said it was no longer in stock for delivery to their Hammersmith branch (in that case, I am not sure why they have it on display as some stores still appear to have it online and after all, Hammersmith is more of a collection store). But to get back to the point, I bought the Broringe white underframe and the Leifarne seat shell and was told to go the next day, which is today, first thing in the morning to collect it, as it would be delivered to their store overnight. I was there on the dot but when I went to the collection desk I was told that only the underframe had arrived and not the seat shell, but that I would be receiving a text later in the day and should then return to the branch to collect. Instead I got a call towards the close of business, only to be told there had been a mix-up and that it was not going to be available for pick-up ever at the Hammersmith Branch, so instead they had arranged to have it delivered as a favour to my home address on Tuesday 14th, without first checking to see if the day and time were suitable. It turns out I will not be around that day, I will be away for work, they should have checked with me first, I would have preferred that an effort had been made to have it delivered to their store, but that was not an option for them. So, I asked if I could go to the Hammersmith store for a refund, they said NO, as they had arranged to have it delivered and that I needed to call customer service for that. I rang customer service and asked them for a refund, after which I received an email from IKEA to confirm that my order was successfully cancelled and that I would receive a refund within 14 days, but as the order number in their email was different to that on my receipt, I had to call again to verify. This has been time consuming for me and not dealt with professionally by IKEA, they should have found a solution to compensate for their mix-up and have taken more of an interest. Generally, I do not feel they were remotely bothered, let alone concerned with customer satisfaction. So, my personal experience with IKEA's new branch at Hammersmith, is one of unreliability. I now have to wait for my refund, before ordering from another store and then I am not sure what I will be charged for the delivery of just one chair, when there is a branch so close to me. Moreover, I will not receive it in time for my birthday. Overall a disappointment, let's hope I do not have to chase...

An extremely welcome addition to what is now known as Livat ( rather than the Kings Mall). It's taken almost the whole pandemic to get this amazing refurbishment done but it's been worth the wait. This is no cheap n chatty warehouse fit out. The displays have a clean and largely uncluttered look with plenty of mini room layouts set at interesting, fully accessible angles. The ground floor has many of the same market place features as the one in Wembley with the bonus of a much more pleasant customer service section, returns and brightly labelled bargain corner. The checkouts are mostly self service though there are plenty of staff around to assist if you get into difficulty.

Larger items eg furniture, mattresses and kitchen white goods / cabinets have to be ordered. I'm unclear whether there is a storage facility with an offer of click n collect to pick up items within the body of the Livat car park. I suggest you check the Livat website for that option.

What's most exciting is the sit down cafe / dining area by the inside entrance. It has a deli counter with some wraps and other Danish edibles. Some of the eateries in King St are overpriced in my opinion. Here you can pick up lkea items, then relax with food and drink before you catch the bus home or pick up your car.

The only thing that's missing from the store are live plants. They probably took this decision for both hygiene reasons and staff management. I imagine there will be a high turn over in the first year as they give opportunities to school leavers, apprenticeship schemes and other keen part timers. There is also no ball pond creche or obvious kids play space so please be aware of your responsibility for your children while in store.

Ikea's arrival in King St certainly marks an upward swing in the tone and flavour of the Hammersmith shopping experience. TKMAXX and other shops nearby would do well to look at their accessibility issues. IKEA have lifts and smooth running escalators to their basement with clear signage throughout.

Don't forget to check out the sofa read n chill out steps that lead up to the Livat car park. Ingenious shopping mall feature that l will try out on...

*If you shop here and walk out of this store with the items you have paid for, the security guards stop you for stealing. We shopped at the store and were queuing to get some hot dogs. People shop lift and straight queue up to get hot dogs? I don’t think so?

If you try to prove your innocence by showing the receipt, they will refuse to check it and try to walk out of the situation without acknowledging they were wrong. And it is apparently a common practice according to the IKEA customer service. They conduct a random search on customers to stop thefts somehow? They also hire someone who doesn’t speak English or pretends not to so that he can get away with his false accusations. I wonder why he had VERY RED EYES and acted like he had no clue of what was going on after causing it himself. He must have been very exhausted.

I mean if you wanna stop thefts then why don’t you hire actually competent security guards with some common sense instead of someone acting so clueless or looking like potentially under some kind of influence?

It’s very interesting to read other reviews here as I can see I’m not the only one who experienced it. Clearly they don’t consider their way of conducting the “search” to be unacceptable as they still operate in the same manner.

The security guard refused to give us his name to contact IKEA customer service regarding this incident. He also refused to acknowledge how he handled the situation was unprofessional until the last minutes when he felt like things were getting out of hand. It was absolutely disingenuous. Another security guard was too busy trying to get his buddy’s back and acting like we were being unreasonable but no surprise because this particular security guard caused a similar situation with some customers and I can see his photo on google maps. The whole experience was absolutely vile and I don’t recommend this branch at all unless you wanna experience the nasty customer service of treating customers like thieves. The layout is so dreadful and hard to find anything/they often don’t have...