Simple Assembly Me Hole – NSFW but suitable for weekends.
Sometimes people start small businesses and ventures that seem obvious afterwards but which no-one was thinking about beforehand. I think Simple Assembly Me Hole is one of those.
It’s a great business idea that is it’s own tag line. There are a multitude of purveyors of flatpack self-assembly furniture out there. They range from the low-cost Argos chipboard furniture to the beautifully designed scandinavian pine IKEA is famous for. ONe thing about this type of furniture is quite common whether the instructions are easily to follow or not, a lot of people have difficulty. Here are some of the reasons
- Instructions aren’t easy to follow
- Too lazy to do it (or do it properly)
- No time to do it (I had a filing cabinet still in the box for a year)
- Don’t have the (appropriate) tools (Yeah I’ve put a drawers together with a kitchen knife.. it’s not much fun)
- They’re really not very “handy” (*deep manly cough* not me of course)
Simple Assembly Me Hole are coming to the rescue of all those mechanically challenged and I think it’s a great idea. Hopefully peoples thriftiness in the face of recession won’t do them any harm. I wish them the best of luck with it and if I’m ever buying furniture anywhere they operate in the future I’ll almost certainly use them. Here’s their pricing which I think is pretty good.
PS. Before any guys chip in and say it doesn’t apply to them, dream on, I know you city boys never held a hammer in your lives. 
Suzanne Canning | July 24th, 2009 at 6:37 pm #
in fairness though, its hardly groundbreaking. every man and his dog is offering flatpack furniture assembly, soem at cheaper prices than above. they had the ‘flatpack olympics’ out at ikea the other day and the amount of people thinking this is an easy way to make a quick buck is amazing. it is a great idea, but its a highly competitive market place and i think it will be impossible for any one company to have any sort of majority. if you search in google you will see how many similar companies appear to have set up in the last month based on ikea opening.
Anton | July 24th, 2009 at 8:10 pm #
Assembling furniture isn’t groundbreaking no. But then I didn’t say it was.
For me at least clear communication is key to my trust and I don’t think someone who invests in a well designed and implemented web presence is out for a quick buck. Also this service had the intelligence to brand themselves in a way that would spark interest and to reach out to me and tell me they exist. I think they’re looking pretty professional so far but time will tell.. After the initial transaction though it’ll be their professionalism and reputation that will carry them.
As for it being a competitive marketplace, well, there were plenty of bookshops before Amazon and plenty of coffee shops before Starbucks.
The idea that no one can gain a dominant market share because a market is competitive and a lot of those people are “out for a quick buck” doesn’t add up from a business perspective. I would suggest that cowboys in the market makes it easier to differentiate yourself. Whether they can do that though is something that remains to be seen.
Maryrose Lyons | July 25th, 2009 at 10:58 am #
I set up Simple Assembly Me Hole because I am one of the people who’d go mad in Ikea, and then be faced with the consequences when I get home (my spatial and DIY talents are not that great!). I wasn’t aware of any flatpack assembly service because the ones that exist do not market themselves very well.
Most if not all of the competitors are one man with a van, so you might be waiting for him to get to you. We have a team of 21 carpenters, cabinet makers, and fitters dotted all around the city, so if we get an order in Lucan, our man in Lucan will be there in a jiffy.
Another key differentiator is that we charge a fixed flat fee per item. All of the others charge based on time. Therefore it is in our interests to get the job done as quickly as possible, whereas competitors might be tempted to push things into the ’second hour’.
Our delivery service offers next day delivery for bookings made before noon. Ikea delivers alright, but experience overseas shows that you’ll be waiting up to 7 days for your item to be delivered.
At the end of the day, if we Irish go mad for IKEA like it’s predicted, there will be plenty of room for a number of providers. I’m just going for the design and price conscious people – just like IKEA does!