> IKEA likes to find ways to get you into their physical stores because they know you’re going to end up buying more than just the items you came for.
If only they actually had a decent density of stores in the US. I live north of a major metro area (Boston) and I have to drive over 1.5 hours to an IKEA. I used to live in Raleigh, NC and the closest one was over 3.5 hours away.
Although maybe this is part of the strategy, getting you to travel a long distance to there stores in order to keep you there.
I actually needed a couple of closet accessories after some renovation and IKEA seemed to make the most sense. I could have driven to the Boston-area IKEA but it was a pretty hectic time and, while I could have made a day-long expedition out of the process, at the end of the day, it just made more sense to pay them $60 or whatever to deliver what I needed to assemble and use.
And, yes, I would probably have bought some other things had I gone to the store.
Local state legislature has several car dealership owners that also started their own chartered towns. Wasn't thinking about starbase but that qualifies.
Kinda hope they have a good way to migrate Skype numbers. I have one that I used sometimes when I don't want to give my real number. I have been meaning to look into alternatives. I think I can port it to some other provider, but haven't found one I liked.
In theory when you live within walking distance to a grocery store it becomes much easier to do many smaller trips, rather than a once weekly "shopping trip". Your right though this article doesn't really talk about that.
We live in a city down the street from a grocery store. We sort of treat the store as an extended pantry. When we need to make something, we just go down to the store and get the stuff and make it. Door to door time to the store is 2-3 minutes, the lines are usually never long because it's a smaller store but they have about as much staff as a larger one.
Whenever we need to get a little more we just bring one of the carts from the store up to our apartment via the elevator and bring it back.
As for the rest of the things. Again if you can walk or take good transit there is no need to drive.
Its more of my own ignorance and lack of experience to be able to appreciate that kind of lifestyle because we have a two story home with lots of space, two car garage, and three cars. There is a lot of freedom but lack of walkability. We have to drive to walk somewhere like an outdoor style mall. Or to plaza's to doctor's, optometrist, Target, Walmart, Aldi's, etc
It's not hard to find e-bikes with belt drives. Honestly, I think they'll take over the e-bikes market within 10 years or so (I think there are still some outstanding patents?). More expensive and slightly less efficient than a chain, but both of those are probably negligible for the context of e-bikes, and in exchange you never get grease on your pant leg, you never need to lube anything, you never need to worry about a derailleur needing to have its gears realigned or having the chain jump out (of course you could have an internally-geared chain bike).
Harley Davidson, among others, uses belts. Torque isn't the issue in the context of m/c final drive. Chains are a tad more efficient, which hp obsessed customers fuzz about.
I have a lectric and the build quality is terrible. Had to deal with:
- a bent frame out of the box
- a recall due to defective brakes
- lights not secured properly
- loose fender after less than 100km
- a derailleur that refuses to allow use of all gears- no matter how adjusted it is unable to use either the lowest or highest
Yep. I have a single speed e bike with a belt drive and internal motor in the back wheel. Use it for commuting round London. 0 maintenance. None of this over engineered Bosch shit. Cheap Chinese 250w motor in the back, belt drive, aluminium frame. These should take off, but so far the major bike manufacturers have overcomplicated the category - and the startup that made mine has gone under (analog motion)
The cycling industry and trends are based on processional racing and a chain/derailleur is going to maintain significantly more power transfer at that level than a belt drive or internally geared hub.
If Shimano/Sram cared about building top-shelf commuter drivetrains (Shimano has Alfine) they could easily purchase Gates or build a competing company.
If only they actually had a decent density of stores in the US. I live north of a major metro area (Boston) and I have to drive over 1.5 hours to an IKEA. I used to live in Raleigh, NC and the closest one was over 3.5 hours away.
Although maybe this is part of the strategy, getting you to travel a long distance to there stores in order to keep you there.