IKEA — Local services in Orlando

Today, thanks to IKEA Orlando, I had the opportunity to live the most bizarre, humiliating and despicable experience of my life as a resident in the USA. And all because the person in charge of returns and replacements at the IKEA store in Orlando, Mr. Bryan, sentenced that 3 Latinos (2 Venezuelans and a Puerto Rican), and a Trinidadian-born Indian, do not have enough merit as customers to face his arbitrariness. Today, we opened a box of an office table purchased at IKEA Orlando, to install our booth at VISION EXPO 2025 in Orlando, realizing that it was not the furniture we needed. We packed the table carefully to include all the items. The box was closed using transparent packing tape. We went to IKEA to make the exchange, and at the time of concluding the transaction, the person in charge of the area, Bryan, informed us that they would receive our products as a return but we were banned from making new purchases at IKEA, since we would be carrying out a kind of fraud against IKEA; according to him, the box returned by us did not contain the product we had bought, but a different one, where pieces were missing. Bryan claims to have produced this version by watching the videos from the returns area, videos that he refused to show us. Faced with our emphatic refusal to accept his version of events, Bryan entered the returned items area and brought a DIFFERENT box from the one we had returned, with a table model of different size, design and color. To our explanations that this was not the product we returned, Bryan replied that he had nothing more to discuss with us. However, coincidentally, through one of the windows that allows to to watch inside the offices, we could see the box we returned, with the packing tape still stuck to the cardboard of the box. Bryan categorically refused, over and over and over again, to bring us precisely that box with the packing tape, denying us the slightest right to prove to him that we are not the scoundrels he prejudiced thinks we are. We have been purchasing IKEAs furnitures, in Miami and NY, since 2016. We use the products to install our booths at VISION EXPO, as well as various office furniture and appliances. In the face of several thousand dollars in purchases in all these years, I want to tell Bryan, his boss, and his boss's boss, that $130 or $140 of the value of this table have revealed the blunder, the lack of seriousness and the inability of IKEA in its recruitment policies. People charged of serving customer should be filtered to exclude arbitrary, derogatory and discriminatory personality. My personal opinion is that Bryan may probably fit well for working with pigs, chickens or ducks in a farm, but not for dealings...

Went to Ikea Millenia Orlando store today to return a few items and to buy many more, having measured exactly what I needed for my kitchen. My experience today was awful and I left the store furious and did not do the shopping I intended to do there. I had a few items to return and was pleased to see that there was not a single customer waiting for the returns agents. I stood there for a full 5 minutes waiting to be called to the counter. I looked at the screen and saw that it clearly indicated nobody was ahead of me. There were FIVE agents behind the counter, only one of whom was speaking to a very large man who I assumed to be a customer. None of the agents acknowledged the fact that I was right there in front of them obviously waiting for an agent. The large man who I assumed to be a customer turned to walk away, and it was at that time that I realized that he was also an Ikea staff member. SIX STAFF MEMBERS serving zero customers. Seriously??? Eventually a female agent asked me if I was there to return goods. I said yes, at which time she escorted me to a check in computer and told me that if I need service, I have to check myself in first. To add me to a nonexistent queue. I did as I was instructed, then looked at the screen and saw that I was the first and only person in the mythical queue. I walked back to where I had already previously been waiting for service, and proceeded to wait for another minute or so. The same female agent then slowly sauntered to a different computer and only then did she call my name. Unbelievable. My husband had gone to the bathroom when we walked in together, and he was back and ready to shop long before my one-minute return business was completed. By then I was fuming and steered him to the door to leave. Sensing my anger, he wanted to turn back and ask to speak with a manager; I said no, and that I would call when I cooled off. I had already decided to spend my money elsewhere. It's beyond disappointing that not one of six staff members cared enough to greet me on my arrival and invite me to check in so I could be served immediately. Ikea's HR department should deal with this laziness and compete disregard for the value of its' customers' time heavy handedly. There are a multitude of shopping options literally in every direction around the Millenia store. So I will redo my kitchen and organization elsewhere. I would hope that this clear disinterest in IKEA customers would be as unacceptable to IKEA as it is to...

OK—I love IKEA too. I have an IKEA credit card. But as great as IKEA is, this location falls a bit flat (packed). If you’re doing everything self-serve, you’re in luck. It might be crowded but it’s a good shopping experience, and the employees are welcoming and affirming (at least when you can find them). I have noticed that the selection of products here is limited compared to other IKEA stores, including some items on the floor that have a tag saying they aren’t sold at this location.

Be careful when you go to load up your boxes, though, as the loading zone is chaotic at best and criminal at worst (literally—I was actually threatened with violence once because I pulled into an open spot that was apparently “saved” somehow), and IKEA doesn’t station employees to calm nerves or help manage traffic.

Also, if you buy something in store that needs to be pulled out of the back by an employee, make sure you bring a whole novel and a backup battery with you. This process is SLOW even if nobody else is waiting—you’ll see employees sauntering about, but I literally just waited for almost half an hour (nobody in front of me) for a tiny box with 5-inch sofa legs. The employee who pulled them had gone out to grab a coffee or something when I sat down to wait, and apparently none of the other four employees assigned to that area could take care of the box in his absence. Don’t even get me started on the 90+ minute waits I’ve had for stuff when it’s busy.

That said—you can just order online and pick up the next day, so if you can afford to wait a day, just do that—the employees assigned to curbside pickup are friendly and much more efficient.

Bottom line—this is the only IKEA in the area, so rhetorical review doesn’t matter if you need stuff from IKEA. Just be aware that your experience here won’t be quite up to the standard set by other...