Ikea has purchased TaskRabbit, the two companies confirmed to Recode earlier today. The gig-centric digital marketplace — which is basically the embodiment of the managerial mantra "it's important to delegate" — will become an independent subsidiary within Ikea, and its CEO and staff will stay on.
"In a fast-changing retail environment, we continuously strive to develop new and improved products and services to make our customers' lives a little bit easier. Entering the on-demand, sharing economy enables us to support that," Ikea CEO Jesper Brodin said in a statement. "We will be able to learn from TaskRabbit's digital expertise, while also providing Ikea customers additional ways to access flexible and affordable service solutions to meet the needs of today’s customer."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
This move represents Ikea's first venture into the world of on-demand work platforms, and is part of the home-goods giant's attempt to get into digital customer service to keep up with competitors like Amazon. As part of its tech-centric efforts, Ikea recently launched a virtual-reality app called Ikea Place through which you can see how furniture looks in your space before you buy it.
This acquisition makes so much sense to us, we're actually kind of surprised it hadn't already happened. Because, let's be real, what do you use TaskRabbit for? Putting together Ikea furniture because no one has time for that, right?
The reactions on Twitter confirmed what we were thinking. This is a match made in furniture heaven.
Because you use TaskRabbit to build IKEA furniture. https://t.co/dnGI0KclI6
— Cristina Silva (@cristymsilva) September 28, 2017
Does this suggest or imply that assembling Ikea furniture was a significant % of what rabbits were hired for?
— Sharky Laguana (@Sharkyl) September 28, 2017
as a former taskrabbit roughly 80% of my tasks were Ikea assembly
— Heather (@HellaHeather415) September 28, 2017
I mean, @TaskRabbit was kind of a de facto arm of IKEA already https://t.co/lYewBAyHHj
— Robert Stephens (@rstephens) September 28, 2017
still no flying cars but uh now Ikea owns the company that assembles your furniture for you https://t.co/cMeJIgDZgH
— Caroline O'Donovan (@ceodonovan) September 28, 2017
Read these stories next:
You May Never Have To Assemble Another Piece Of Ikea Furniture Again
You May Never Have To Assemble Another Piece Of Ikea Furniture Again