IKEA Is Increasing Refunds on Returned and Unwanted Office Furniture by 50 Percent This Week

With plenty of IKEA furniture ending up deep in the Gumtree 'For Sale' ads or left on the side of the road, the Swedish retailer came up with a pretty clever plan to give those unwanted flat-pack ensembles a second lease on life: a buy-back service. In good news for those moving house or faced with an accumulative collection of Malm blond wood pieces, the chain allows Australians to return their retired IKEA pieces to their nearest store, ready to be sold on to a new home — and score a voucher for their efforts.

Until Saturday, August 14, IKEA is going a step further at its Logan and North Lakes stores in Brisbane — on office furniture, specifically. Return an unwanted IKEA desk, chair or other office piece this week, and the retailer will ramp up your refund by 50 percent. So yes, you'll receive 1.5 times as much as you would if you brought in a few bookshelves once the special is over.

So how does it work? If you've got some furniture you want to get out of your life, you'll need to get an estimated quote online. When you do so, that web calculator will automatically increase the value of your returned item by 50 percent compared to normal. Then, you'll need to take the quote and your furniture — still fully assembled, mind you — to your closest IKEA location. Once there, your furniture will be assessed by an IKEA staff member, and they'll confirm the a value and give you a buy-back refund card to use in-store.

The one big caveat: to score the extra refund, you'll need to be an IKEA Family member (otherwise, you'll just receive the normal amount). It's free to join, though, and you can sign up online.

Even added credit on offer, the buy-back scheme still works in the same general way. So, it's only for IKEA furniture, and not for other products like lighting, mattresses, textiles, kitchen components or appliances. That's because the bought-back pieces need to be in good enough condition to be sold on to other customers in the As-Is store. It does, however, have separate recycling schemes for mattresses, batteries and light bulbs.

The by-back program was rolled out nationally in 2019 after a year-long trial at Sydney's Tempe store, which saw 1600 pieces bought back from customers. Initially, the initiative was spurred by findings from the company's latest People & Planet Positive Report, which suggested Aussies threw away up to 13.5 million pieces of furniture that could have been recycled, reused or repaired.

If your bookcase or filing cabinet isn't in quite good enough condition for the As-Is store, you might need to consider donating it to charity or finding another way to recycle it. And if you are buying new furniture, consider buying something secondhand from the As-Is store, or at least investing in something that you plan to keep long-term.

For more information about IKEA's buy-back scheme, head to the retailer's website. Until Saturday, August 14, IKEA Family members will get an extra 50-percent refund amount on returned IKEA furniture, as calculated via an online quote, and then confirmed when you take your goods to the brand's stores to collect and redeem the voucher.