Category: Consumer culture

It’s been a looooooooong wait since we first heard the news back in January of 2009 (eek, I was just starting my very first 365 project that month, seems like a hundred years ago!) that Ikea would be opening the Largest! Ikea! in Canada! right here in Ottawa. It will be 427,000 sq. ft. of inspiration, with 55 show rooms, double the product selection, and a whopping 640 (!) seats at the restaurant. It’s the size of eight football fields, people!

I’d be pretty excited about this under ordinary circumstances, but I am way over the top excited about the grand opening next week for a couple of reasons. First, Ikea has offered to be a blog sponsor for the month of December, to help spread the word about the new store. Check out the new ad in the sidebar over there on the right. —>

And then Beloved and I were invited with a bunch of other Ottawa bloggers and media types to a special preview event on Monday, just two days before the big grand opening. Stand by for giddy tweets and a blog post on that!

Ikea has been a part of my life as long as I’ve lived in Ottawa. I remember going out to the old store in Bells Corners when I first moved out here in 1988. In fact, one of the few remnants from my “practice marriage” is a pine dresser we received as a wedding present, purchased at Ikea and one of the few pieces of anything I deemed worthy of keeping when we split up in the early 1990s. There’s not a room in my house that doesn’t have Ikea *something* in it, right down to the bathrooms. Cabinets, dressers, beds, pots and pans, shelves, picture frames, plates, coat racks, toy bins, shower curtains; I can’t imagine how bare the place would be without Ikea’s influence.

It’s serendipitous that I’m writing this post about the new Ikea as I listen to the thumps and bangs of a new high-efficiency furnace being installed in the basement beneath me. No, Ikea is not (yet?) in the business of home heating, but they recently sent me an interesting press release explaining how the new store will be 40 per cent more energy efficient than the most recently built Canadian store (built back in 2004.) More from the press release:

Growing more than 360,500 square feet in size, the store will be going from Canada’s smallest to its largest. The new building will use an automation system for increased energy efficiency, and will take advantage of available technologies in lighting and water sensors, low flow plumbing, efficient light sources and highly efficient restaurant equipment. The Ottawa store will be equipped with facilities and equipment to allow the store to achieve a goal of diverting 90% of its solid waste from the landfill.

True to form, Ikea has found a fun and unique way to invite the citizens of Ottawa to join in the fun and festivities of the grand opening. I saw the truck with the “Ottawa Interior Beautification Plan” driving around earlier this week, but didn’t catch the Facebook promotion until a few days ago. Here’s what the Ikea folks are up to:

To build excitement around the opening, we are introducing the Ottawa Interior Beautification Plan which will will include:

1. Setting up trade in locations for Ottawans to exchange their old items for beautification credits (IKEA gift cards). Locations To Be Announced.
2. Conducting drive by beautifications, where we will drive our IKEA truck through different neighbourhoods, trading unwanted items for Beautification credits to anyone with our Beautification signs in their windows. The signs can be downloaded from the IKEA Canada Facebook page or clipped out of the December 3rd Ottawa Citizen.
3. Giving away new IKEA items at outdoor beautification boards all over Ottawa.

You can get more information on Ikea’sOttawa Beautification Plan on their Facebook page. 🙂

I have to say, of all the things I’ve hauled home over the years, among my favourites are the plates and bowls I picked up last Christmas, navy blue with white stars and white with navy blue stars, and these multicoloured daisies I bought by the handful this summer. I have them all over the house, and you can see them in this picture.

(Ha, also perched on a bistro table and matching chairs from Ikea! And the vase? Ikea, of course.)

So tell me, what’s your favourite Ikea purchase?

This is the story of two companies, one big and one small, that impressed me over the holiday break. I think businesses get a lot of flack when they do poorly, but not nearly enough props when they get it right.

On the Monday after Christmas, I walked into the Manotick Village Butcher looking for some ground beef for meatloaf. I am so impressed with their locally grown, ethically and sustainably raised meat that I will now do most of my shopping at the grocery store while making a special trip there for the meat. And it’s close and convenient enough that I can just pop in to get the meat fresh on the day I need it, rather than thawing out freezer-burned hunks and having to plan ahead.

Well, when I walked in there last Monday, I was temporarily flummoxed to see the place dark, with nothing in the display cases. I cast a surprised glance at James (I’m pretty sure he’s the owner) and said, “What happened?” thinking they had suffered some sort of power outage.

“It’s Monday,” he replied. “We’re closed on Mondays.” Oh right, closed on Mondays. I knew that, but completely lost track of my days during the holiday break. “What are you looking for?” he asked.

I told him I was looking for some ground beef, and he said he had some in the back. He returned with the meat and as he dropped it on the counter in front of me, I reached for my purse. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said. When I protested, he replied, “No, really, it’s okay. We were just going to freeze it and use it for cooking anyway.”

Isn’t that great? Small-town service with a smile. And, he’s a photographer, too. Have you seen this set of Canada Post stamps featuring historic mills of Canada? James took the portrait of Watson’s Mill featured on one of the stamps. Pretty cool, eh?

The second story is one of customer service gone wrong, and then right. In November, we bought a Whirlpool 70-pint dehumidifier for the basement from Canadian Tire. In mid-December, we went to unplug it and the third prong of the plug stayed in the wall. All the paperwork that came with the dehumidifier said, “Do not bring this product back to the retailer. Call this number for service.” So I called that number, and was told I’d need the original receipt for service. Which was lost. That was thick in the middle of the failing furnace and mould remediation and what seemed like an endless stream of injustices, and a $380 dehumidifier rendered useless by a $3 plug was the icing on the cake.

That’s when I found out that if you pay for an item at Canadian Tire with your interac card and you bring your bank statement to customer service, they can recreate your receipt for you. It took about a week and a half, but it was better than throwing the money down the toilet.

So, new receipt in hand, I called the third-party company that handles Whirlpool’s dehumidifier repairs back and re-explained the whole story to them again. By now it was three days before Christmas, and the basement repairs had mostly been done and we were twitchy to get our dehumidifier working again. We’re pretty sure the issues that had caused the mould were fixed, but the humidity in the basement is still on the high side.

I pleaded for quick service, and was told someone would get back to me to arrange a service date soon. Shortly after that, I received a rather apologetic e-mail from the clerk to whom I had been speaking, saying that the warranty did not cover the plug. They could ship a replacement cord at cost, but it would be at my expense and I’d have to repair it myself.

I think steam actually came out of my ears as I was re-dialing the service telephone number. I got a third person, and after I re-re-explained the whole thing, she put me on hold for a very long time while she read up on the file from her end. Then she came back and said, “Well, that doesn’t seem right.” We agreed on how not right it seemed that I’d be out nearly $400 for a $3 part on a six week old dehumidifier. She told me her name was Emilia, and that she was personally going to make this right for me. She called me three more times over the next week, updating me as she escalated my claim first to her supervisor and then to Whirlpool itself. Long story a wee bit shorter, the part has been ordered and someone will be dropping by to install it in the next week or so.

Isn’t it great when someone gets the customer service thing right?

I adopted a new coffee maker this week. This is a momentous occasion in our household, as the coffee pot is often the last safety rail between me and the gaping maw of insanity. I don’t just like coffee. I need coffee. My name is DaniGirl, and I am a java junkie.

We got our last coffee maker about a year ago. Its predecessor had unceremoniously passed, and I had exactly one lunch hour to find a replacement. I went with a Hamilton Beach model from Home Sense, thinking I was getting a fancy-ass coffee maker at a discount. In fact, it was just a discount coffee maker. I accidentally broke one of the hinges on the carafe lid about the second week we had it, and the coffee has gone from mediocre to awful in the last month or two. And, it had an annoying propensity to overflow without warning, flooding the counter with hot coffee and grounds — something that is very not good for our septic system. And yet, we tolerated it because the idea of spending money on another coffee maker when we have a functioning one rankles me, even if the coffee it makes is nearly undrinkable. The final straw came when it seemed to be emitting random puddles of water, even when turned off. Time for a new coffee maker.

Even though I am a copious consumer of coffee, I do not have high-end coffee maker tastes. We got an espresso-cappuccino maker for our wedding that collected a lot of dust until we got rid of it at a garage sale a few years back. I won a Tassimo through Twitter last year, and couldn’t find a blend I liked. Beloved loves the Tassimo, though, and absconded with it to his office. In all the years I’ve been buying and replacing coffee makers, I never could justify spending any more than $20 or $25 for the basic model. Does it make coffee? Then it’s good enough.

This time, though, I noticed a mid-level Black and Decker model on for half price at Canadian Tire. It’s fancy, but not pretentious. Now I know. When you graduate to the mid-level coffee maker, you get features like brew selection (mild, regular, strong) and adjustable temperatures on your warming plate. Those are nice features, I suppose, but I still wouldn’t pay $80 for them. it has the usual timer feature, so you can set it to brew first thing in the morning, and an auto-shut-off, which is invaluable. It has a little blue LED that lights up the reservoir, which again is nice but kinda useless. And, it has a digital display that tells you whether the coffee is “fresh” or “not fresh”.

This last one I was a little too excited about. And then I read in the manual that the coffee maker thinks “fresh” coffee is less than 20 minutes old. Harrumph. If I get to a cup of coffee in the first 20 minutes after a pot is brewed, it’s the exception rather than the rule. To me, “fresh” coffee has been turned back on after the auto-shut-off only once. Heck, sometimes “fresh” stretches its definition all the way to ‘was brewed today’. I am not fussy. I will drink, if I must, coffee that is burnt, or cold, and not irregularly, both.

The proof of the coffee maker, though, is truly in the drinking. I divested it of its packing material this morning (sidebar note: it now seems that small appliances are being shipped with the same amount of ridiculously overwrought packaging that one previously experienced only with toys) and cleaned it out. I brewed up a pot and was highly impressed with its near-silent operation – our current coffee maker rivals the dishwasher and passing garbage trucks for decibels. And the coffee? Divine. I am in love. In fact, I’m on my third cup, twice rewarmed, and it’s still tastier than the first drops out of Hamilton Beach’s poor excuse for a coffee maker.

Sweet brown ambrosia, you lubricate my mornings. And afternoons. And occasional evenings. Don’t judge me, it could be crack, yanno.

What about you? Do you have one of those high-end coffee makers and does it make your mornings worthwhile? Or are you more like me, unable to see what features beyond “makes coffee” one might need in a coffee maker?

In the ongoing evolution of the Great Moving Project of 2010, we have moved beyond the rush of finding, the excitement of buying, the panic of preparing and the pain of selling. While we endure the seemingly endless wait until the waiver of conditions, anticipated for late this week or early next, we now turn our attention to the thrill of acquiring new stuff to cram into the new house!

The new house comes equipped with a stove that seems fairly similar to our current one and a dishwasher. I was going to bring our well-loved high-efficiency washer and dryer with us, and buy a new fridge, but the people who are buying our place are coming from a rental and wanted all five appliances. Long story short, we now find ourselves in the market for a washer, a dryer and a fridge.

The washer and dryer are a no-brainer for me. I’m quite happy to simply reacquire the latest version of the LG front-loading washer and dryer I currently have. In fact, at one of the local appliance shops right now they have a sale on that makes them about $200 cheaper than what I paid for a set with a few less features back in 2008.

The fridge thing is another issue. Actually, it’s several issues. First, the spot for the fridge in the new house is on the small side, and the height clearance is only 66 inches. We took a good look at the cupboards over the fridge, though, and decided it would make more sense in the long run to simply have someone remove those cupboards for us so we can get a decent-sized fridge. With three teenage boys on the horizon, we’re gonna need maximum fridge capacity! I’m not sure what our current fridge is, but I think it’s either 17 or 19 cubic feet.

Who knew there were so many fridge features to consider! Freezer top-mount or bottom-mount or along the side; pull-out shelves in the fridge on some of the higher-end models; french versus full doors… there’s a lot of options! I already know I don’t want stainless steel and I don’t want a water dispenser, so that narrows things down a little bit.

I’ve already decided I want a bottom-mount freezer, and I am toying with the idea of that “french door” style, like this one. I was all ready to go with an LG, but I was peeking at a couple of the GE Profile models in the showroom, and they seemed to have a bit more solid feel to them, and an extra pull-out basket in the freezer that I liked.

So here’s where we play “ask the bloggy peeps” again. What do you love and hate about your current fridge? What features do you covet, or find useless? I’m especially curious to know if any of you have the “french door” model and find that the doors don’t close well — maybe because they’re lighter than a traditional fridge door, but they don’t seem to seal themselves as well and I’m worried the boys won’t remember to push them closed all the way. And pull-out shelves in the fridge compartment — worth getting?

I’m also wondering if it’s worth the effort to pull out the small bit of wall that marks the edge of the fridge’s space in the kitchen to give us the extra inch we’ll need to move from a 19 cubic foot to a 22 cubic foot fridge. It may mean the side of the fridge impedes into the doorway into the kitchen by half an inch or so, but may well be worth it for the extra space. Thoughts?

Brands, features, loves, hates or cautionary tales? C’mon bloggy peeps, talk fridgey to me!

Sheesh, can you tell I’m on a self-improvement kick? Healthier foods, the 100-push-up challenge (are you in?) and now — I’m thinking of bicycling in to work. Can you tell I get all fired up by the spring sunshine?

It’s about a 10 km jaunt from home to work for me. Most of it is along Woodroffe Avenue (four lanes at 80+ km/h — eek! — but with a lovely bike lane set off from the road) and it’s largely flat. I just need another week or so to psyche myself into it, and a day with nothing planned for first thing in the morning, just in case it takes me two hours instead of the anticipated 40 minutes to make the trek!

And of course, like any new convert, now that I’m thinking of biking seriously I’m also thinking about upgrading my gear. Just this past weekend I bought myself a nice 1L coffee thermos so I can make a pot to go rather than ride through the drive-thru at Timmy’s, which was my biggest hurdle. Oh wait, you mean I’m supposed to be coveting bike-related gear? Yeah, that too!

I have a really nice bike. It’s about 15 years old, and has had, um, only moderate wear through the years. Let’s just say it got a lot more wear in the seven years before the babies arrived than it has since! It was a good investment at the time — I spent about $400 on it, and it’s still in pretty good shape. It’s not the most comfortable bike in the world, though. The handlebars are too low, and I have tried unsuccessfully to get them raised. I want one of those new cushy seats, too. Let’s face it, an ass in its 40s deserves a bit of comfort!

A year or so ago, I saw one of those retro-cruising bikes, and instantly coveted it. The big white-wall tires, the fenders, the pastel colours? Covet! But, are they practical? I don’t even know which type of bike I want — or, more specifically, which one is the best investment for the kind of riding I’ll be doing. A one-speed cruiser might be a little simplistic for the 10 km communte, no? (Who am I kidding, even with my current 21-speed bike, I only use about three of them and usually only then when I change gears by accident!) The hybrid bikes look like a good choice, and my cousin suggested I make sure I get something without those big knobby wheels if I’m planning on doing a lot of city riding.

Gah, so many choices!

I was surfing around the bike shop Web sites, and it seems like the base bike-shop price is more than $500 — about double what I was thinking I’d spend. (And think of the gorgeous camera lens I could get with $500!) But then, my existing bike is a testament to investing in a good product. Canadian Tire has a bunch in the $200 range. Can someone tell me the difference, and whether it’s really worth the extra $$ for a casual rider like me? I’m not out to win any races, I just want a comfy bike that will make me want to ride it.

Talk bike to me, bloggy peeps. What features do you love and hate about your bike? What do you covet? What should I watch out for? Is it worthwhile to invest in a $500+ bike that will last me another 15 years? (Ack, just realized that will bring me to age 55 and retirement — I think I have to go lie down now. When did I get to be so old???)

So I got an iPod Touch for Christmas, as I mentioned. And, as I mentioned, even though I hadn’t even asked for it and when I opened it, wasn’t entirely convinced I wanted it, in the two weeks I’ve had it I’ve come to love it dearly.

It didn’t take long for me to start exploring the app store, and most of the apps I downloaded were the freebies. (I have to admit, I am highly impressed by what you can get for free. And, in a delicious coincidence, my new task at work is to figure out how to make our Web site more mobile-friendly, and even look into creating an app of our own. Wicked cool, and wickedly serendipitous.) But, of course, there were a few games that sucked me in. I had no problem forking over $4.99 for Sim City, and I think Tetris set me back $2.99. The one I play most often is Boggle — I think that set me back another $2.99. I didn’t mind splurging a bit on games, though, because Beloved also gave me a $25 iTunes gift card to go along with it.

(Many of you are nodding along, because you know what’s coming. I have to admit, I had no idea, but I am peeved.)

I didn’t realize anything was amiss until I happened to see the $1.99 and $2.99 charges to my Visa card. Apparently, in Canada you cannot use an iTunes gift card to buy apps. That is annoying in and of itself, but to me even more annoying is that I had no idea. Not when we gave our niece and nephew $25 each gift cards for Christmas to use on their new iPods, and not when I entered my iTunes password to purchase the apps. It did not give me any sort of indication that I was bypassing my $40 gift card balance and instead charging the purchases to my Visa card. A friend of mine with an 11 year old didn’t notice until there were nearly $100 worth of charges on his credit card, so I guess I got off lucky.

So I started poking around on the Internet, figuring there must be some sort of workaround out there somewhere, but there isn’t one that I could find. What I did find was post after post after post of angry consumers, many of whom had contacted Apple and received paltry compensation like a credit for a free song or two. Apple seems to be claiming that they are unable to allow the use of gift cards to purchase apps because of what one Apple customer service rep called “Canadian Commerce Laws”.

Then I found a guy named Jim Whitelaw who showed a hell of a lot of initiative and managed to get Industry Minister Tony Clement to address the issue in a letter to his own MP. I mean, if the Minister of Industry doesn’t think it’s a problem, and if Sony and Nintendo and other companies allow the use of gift cards to purchase games and software, I have a hard time understanding why Apple is choosing to draw this particular line in the sand.

I’ve had lots of reasons to interact with Apple over the years, and I’ve always found them reasonably responsive. But this totally taints my opinion of them. I’ve been seriously considering both an iPhone and a Mac, but if this is how Canadian Apple customers get treated, then I’m not sure I want to invest any more of my time or money with Apple. It’s a bit of a tarnish on my love of my shiny new iPod, too. I’ve written to Apple (feel free to do so yourself if you’re as ticked as I am — they say they are responsive to customers) but don’t expect anything more than a cursory response.

Consider yourself warned, if you haven’t already found out about this one the hard way like many of my friends already have. The policy itself is bad enough, but the lack of information is inexcusable.

Edited to add: while Apple did respond to me, the response was rather unsatisfactory. The first e-mail told me, rather unhelpfully, that gift cards could not be used to redeem apps in Canada. When I replied that my initial query stated that very fact, and that I was asking instead about the “why” of the policy, I got a second response that said:

According to Apple policies, canadian customer’s are not able to purchase Applications using Store Credit. I know this must be really frustrating.

I encourage you to use the iTunes Feedback page to submit your feedback below, it may help us to improve our customer satisfaction. We will be considering your feedback very carefully:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Your efforts to share your feedback are very much appreciated.

So, I took their advice and I encourage you to do so, too. Have at ‘er, bloggy peeps!