Pre Covid, Ikea was a pain to order a kitchen from. Now- well, it’s even trickier. I wasn’t sure what to expect- I haven’t set a foot inside IKEA for probably a year so I’d only heard that they’d fumbled dealing with the pandemic. But I thought I’d share my experience as well as my tips for how to order an IKEA kitchen in 2020.
how to order an ikea kitchen in 2020
First of all, begin by looking on IKEA’s website and make a kitchen appointment. You can have someone come measure at your house, you can book an in-store appointment to plan, or you can do a virtual appointment for plan verification or online planning.
I, unfortunately, found out that these appointments are booked WAY out in advance!
My store was two months out for in-store appointments. I then tried to book an online appointment to have my plan verified. It showed same day availability! I went for that, but when I got a confirmation email, the next opening was actually a month out. That wouldn’t work, so I had to go for the a different option.
Next, go to Ikea’s online kitchen planner and put in the dimensions of a kitchen and start designing. Add cabinets, appliances, windows, and doors. If you need help on how to use the kitchen planner, I have a blog post filled with tips for how to design an IKEA kitchen.
Since appointments are booked so far out, it’s best to begin with that before creating a plan. However, if you’re in a time pinch like I am, I’ve got some options for you!
option 1- click and collect
If you don’t want to wait, you can manually create an order. In the kitchen planner, once you like everything, you can look at a shopping list of everything. Print that out.
Then, take the list and copy each item and paste on Ikea’s website in the search bar to find each piece. Once located, add each item to the cart. The website will show if the item is in stock. Make sure your store is selected.
This takes forever and is tedious. Especially because you can’t sort the list by item and it takes awhile to make sure the quantity is correct for each item. Make sure to pay attention to these details. Once everything is in the cart, start the check out process. After selecting click and collect, you can see if there’s any issues with the order.
One majorly tricky part with this is that if an item is low in stock, you can’t add it to the cart. Even if there are 5 in stock, you must remove it from the cart before checking out. Once those are removed, you have to pay for everything with a credit card in order to place the order.
Keep reading to see how to get those low stock items.
option 2- delivery
If you’re not in the mood to drive to the store, paying for delivery is a great option. My store was 4 days out- not too shabby. For a small item, the cost was $10 and for a kitchen it was $50. Not all stores have a delivery option and rates probably change based on the area. If I’d been able to order all of my items online from one store, the $50 probably would’ve been worth it.
option 3- go to the store
Next, if you choose the Click & Collect option or if you couldn’t get everything online, it’s time to head to a store. Before leaving, check the stores hours online as they may have changed.
I ended up having to go into two stores to get all of my items. At both stores the restaurant is closed, Smaland (the kid’s child care) is closed, the Bistro had limited hours and you could only eat outside. Each store may differ, but I’m guessing those are probably nation wide changes.
My next tip is to go on a weekday right when it opens. We did this and when we arrived, there were maybe 10 cars in the parking lot. Which meant that the store was pretty much empty as we browsed the kitchens getting inspiration for organizing our cabinets. Less people definitely feels safer to me, so I thought that was a great benefit.
Of course, masks are required in store. I didn’t see anyone without a mask while we shopped.
As we walked past the kitchen planning section, there was one employee and some socially distanced computer monitors open. I didn’t talk to the employee (he was on the phone), but I think there’s a small chance he could’ve verified my plans and put the order through for me. It would definitely be a gamble though.
Honestly, I’m glad I choose to order online even though it was tedious. At least I knew what to expect.
getting low in-stock items
If you need to buy low in-stock items, you can go straight to the warehouse section and there’s a customer service booth with Plexiglas around it. I made sure to have a paper with the item numbers of the items I needed. This saved a TON of time. They create the order, you pay for it at check out, and then pick it up at the furniture pick-up area.
IKEA kitchen items aren’t kept in the general area of the warehouse- only IKEA staff members can get to it. There are some computer monitors still open (this one was off so only one person could use a bank of computers at a time for social distancing), but the customer service rep must request those items so don’t bother using the computer kiosks for kitchen pieces.
After paying for the order, go to the furniture pick up area and wait for your number to be called. Then pull into the loading area and load up. At my store, every other parking spot was closed off for social distancing. I appreciated these details so I thought I’d mention it.
Speaking of details, in store, the yellow bags for carrying stuff around the store are no longer available. You can use a blue one if you pay for it later. Or normal shopping carts are available. There’s sanitizing stations through the store and I noticed more employees cleaning than pre-covid.
picking up click and collect
Outside each store, there’s signs for where to go for picking up click and collect items. Pull into a parking spot and follow the instructions on the sign. Make sure to have the order number handy.
Finally, an employee brings the items to your car, checks your ID, and leaves the cart of stuff for you to pack up.
This isn’t my greatest photo, but I was smiling under that mask! If you’re lucky enough that all of your items are available with Click and Collect, I found this easy to use and a great option for skipping going in store.
We ended up having to go to 2 stores to get all of them items for the kitchen. We’re still short 4 cabinet doors, but they should be in stock next week. It’s annoying, but I’m grateful that we can do 98% of the kitchen before needing those items.
Next time I show the kitchen it’ll be exciting because demo starts soon! Wish us luck!
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