IKEA — Local services in Elizabeth

So I have been to a few different IKEA stores, they are all the same as I see it. My heritage is Scandinavian and I do some design work, so I like clean, European design in general. I like much of what is available at IKEA stores. Now, they sell a lot if other home goods besides furniture (some great values, quality) but that is primary product. A lot of the furniture they sell is take- down, in a box so it is easy to buy and self- transport home. You walk a LOT viewing DISPLAY items, take a photo of what you like (small items you pick right there) and last stop the BIG warehouse where you need to find your stuff according to aisle and bin (note some items come in MULTIPLE boxes please pay attention), load yourself onto the big cart available at entrance to warehouse. Oversize/ very heavy items are only available outside the warehouse near CS counter and after you pay for it using your photo item number, the store will pick them and you must wait in yet another line for that order. Assembly Instructions can be tricky even for experienced engineers, designers, patitence is requited. But it will always come together, and they have 800 number CS available (I needed a few missing parts once, was instructed to return to store where the DID help after 20 minute lineup). Why bother then? Because the design and value are unmatcheable in the USA, no where else to go for this style of furniture! Now, much of what they have nowadays is cheap junk, student quality furniture but that may be their perceived USA market so I cannot blame them. HOWEVER an astute buyer can shop and find sturdy, durable REAL WOOD furniture at excellent value, my home has several pieces as testimony. Lots of selection. Very busy stores, in some markets they offer affordeable online shopping/ delivery options, but not everywhere. Many are excited about the restaurant, but I don't feel it is the same quality or value it used to be so I won't eat there. Food, they also sell a few unique Scandinavian food items like frozen meatballs, lingonberry jelly sauce (quite expensive but unique), and flat crisp bread. I HATE their CARTS! BE CAREFUL it is easy to hurt yourself or others!! They have 4 wheel casters and are difficult to steer. I really don't understand why they chose that design. Worst experience was having the FIRE ALARM go off just when I finally got to checkout, after 2 hours shopping (they are huge stores), and 20 min wait in checkout line! Thry shut down the registers and made us all stand outside in the HOT sun for about 30 minutes, hundreds of people, until FD cleared the building and staff repopulated it first. I get that it HAD to be done but somehow it could have been done better. I really wanted to LEAVE but this Charlotte, NC store is over 100 miles from home and I had 2.5 hours invested in shopping...... JOIN their CLUB right away, you may save a little automatically or you may save a LOT depending on size of order and what is on their unadvertised sale. No cost to join, very easy. Lots of free parking, even for trailers wherever I have visited. A good LOADING zone in front of store if you have large/...

Here are the pros and the cons of this IKEA in Elizabeth, NJ. First off,the location is located right down the block from a major Trucking Hub and it’s extremely difficult to get in or out during the morning and around 3:30p in the afternoon.It's wall-to-wall tractor trailers who don't let you in,or let you out to leave. It’s seems difficult to get in to the left lane to get on a major highway because they block the intersections. You possibly could sit there for awhile.There’s never any cops to help manage the congestion. That being said, once in there's plenty of free parking.It’s very kid friendly.This place is a gigantic warehouse. Stuffed animals in bins all over. IKEA also has shopping carts to walk around with. There’s 2 floors and they have elevators. They can accommodate wheelchairs. The way they have it set up, you enter on one side of the building,and leave on the other side. In order to check out you must walk all the way around. The aisles are self checkout. It's a tremendous amount of walking so wear comfortable shoes. This IKEA has everything you could ever want for your home,bedroom, kitchen, and more. From dishes, pots & pans, organizational items, plants, furniture for the nursery, children’s rooms, or adult’s rooms. They have accessories to accompany them. They sell complete kitchens and have Kitchen items galore. They have Armoires of all kinds, shapes and sizes. Perfect for small apartment to big houses or large open spaces and lofts.They come in several colors. IKEA even sell frozen foods and bakery goods. There’s a Food Court to order their famous Swedish Meatballs and other foods . ( I did not try any of their food .) You can eat in or take it out. You have a choice of either taking the furniture home with you if you have the right transportation or you can have it shipped for a fee. If you need it assembled, it can be arranged for another fee . The smaller items you can take right away. The staff was very friendly, one gentleman even walked us to the area that we were having a hard time finding. You place your order with a staff member they put it in the computer and give you a slip and then you go downstairs and pay. My boyfriend had his order shipped and it was delivered on the correct day and time as promised. I personally have some pieces of IKEA furniture for 20 years already. It’s made very well for what it is. There was so much to see it’s overwhelming. The best part about this IKEA is there’s only 3% sales tax because it’s considered a distressed area. If you’re first starting out or need some reasonable things for your home, apartment, office, kitchen and more this is definitely the place to come. They have tons and tons of beautiful displays. Everything is...

We bought some items from IKEA Elizabeth on August 16th, and the home delivery department scheduled them to be delivered to my home on August 25th. On August 24th, I received a message confirming that the order would be delivered 12-4pm on August 25th, 2025, and I replied “yes.” However, we received an email around8:55am 25th stating that the delivery attempt had failed. Then we called the IKEA call center to ask what had gone wrong. The call center representative contacted the Elizabeth store and told us it might have been a system error, and that the items would still be delivered before 8 p.m. that day. However, after we ended the call, we checked the system again and it still showed the order as “failed.” So we called again, and the call center representative confirmed that all items would be delivered as scheduled, with no changes, and that only the system status had not been updated . Around 4:30 p.m., we were worried that the items would not be delivered as scheduled, so we called again. The call center representative told us that they could not deliver the items that day. She asked us to reschedule the delivery and said the next available date would be September 5th. We replied that we could not accept this, but she immediately hung up the phone. We felt very upset. About 10 minutes later, we called again. During this call, the representative gave us the same response as the previous one, but he helped transfer the line to the Elizabeth store. A lady answered and told us that because we had chosen the cheaper delivery option, that is why we would have to wait a long time. We explained that we had already been waiting about 10 days. After that, she said our items would be delivered at 9 p.m. We confirmed this with her several times, and each time she said yes. Unfortunately, by 9 p.m. we still had not received our package. On the morning of the 26th, we decided to pick up all the items ourselves. We called the call center and told them we wanted to do so. However, the representative told us we could not pick up the items ourselves and gave no reason. We felt very angry. After hanging up, we decided to call again. This time, the representative said yes, we could pick up the items ourselves. In the end, the entire process of buying items from IKEA was extremely frustrating. Additionally, we had to return one item because we could not fit everything in our car. Even though we urgently needed that item, we had to purchase it from another online store. Buying from IKEA not only cost us more money and wasted a lot of time, but also left us feeling disappointed, upset, and frustrated. I am wondering why IKEA staff treat...