I don't love IKEA, but I feel the opposite. Whereas before I thought of them as "the disposable-furniture store," now I'm less dismissive of some of their options as they have gone ever so slightly "middlescale" and offer some middling furniture.

And by my word I though ikea was bottom of the line but it turns out wayfair and Amazon can sell you much worse.

Or Walmart etc.

Maybe 10 years ago, I bought an Ikea dresser for my bedroom and spent too much of a Saturday assembling it. At the time, I had some buyer's regret for not just having splurged on some expensive hardwood piece. But know what? It looks nice enough and does its job just fine.

And I have a couple modernish Ikea chairs in another room which look quite nice and are very comfortable.

I'm sure Ikea has bad stuff and better stuff and I only go every 2-3 years but don't really have complaints.

This last summer I was trying to buy an outdoor dining set.

Ikea's was all sold out. Really well designed piece, folds up nicely.

All other folding outdoor dining sets are sold online only and have terrible reviews. Horrible horrible reviews.

It turns out the price point for dining sets is as follows:

1. Whatever random product Target is selling this year for $100

2. Random product at Home Depot, which probably isn't in stock, for $250-$500, quality unknown.

3. Reasonable quality well designed piece at Ikea for $500

4. Costco's $2000 set.

Ikea continues to success for very good reasons.

I have an old ikea shelf storage that I had to disassemble/assemble at least 3 times to move. I lost few small parts. I was able to order a replacement from their site free of charge by part number. There aren’t that many furniture companies, where you can reorder parts that easily.

> was able to order a replacement from their site free of charge by part number

I had the same experience with a belt clip for a knife by CRKT. 25+ year old knife discontinued who knows how long ago, and they sent me replacement parts free of charge.

Good customer support wins customers, which I suspect is why many like IKEA.

I also like that they sell stuff for so long that you can buy replacements when things break. My mugs are IKEA some of them may be 20 years old. Same for plates. Even cutlery, I managed to get a matching set 10 years after the original.