While I don't shop that much at Ikea, I still remember their product lines, will sift through the dozens of combinations and PDFs, and take notes while looking at the building instructions to see what could be done with a product.
Most of us will choose Ikea for the flexibility, and will happily do some amount of research anyway.
Until reading your comment it didn't hit me that the site was so different from other brands, like Apple for instance. And I sure don't enjoy Apple's site. But then Ikea shops aren't traditional shops either, if sifting through pages of products isn't your thing, walking through sinuous paths all around the shop won't be either.
But how does it make sense in the case you describe to hide those pdfs on the site so deep you cannot find them except when told where to click (or by major accident)?
I'm kinda lost, in another comment you mention the Eket system, so if it's those components you're looking for there's a full page for them liked right at the top of the Eket page:
If we're talking about the "Product details" -> "Assembly and documents" part, that's 3 clicks away and looks pretty straightforward to me. You make it sound like it's 15 levels of links inside the privacy policy.
that contain all information about series in compact, easy to understand form. Try finding that pdf on their site. Now imagine chances of finding it for someone who is not aware it exists. All it would take Ikea is adding one more pdf to the "Assembly and documents" section, so why hide these so much?
While I don't shop that much at Ikea, I still remember their product lines, will sift through the dozens of combinations and PDFs, and take notes while looking at the building instructions to see what could be done with a product.
Most of us will choose Ikea for the flexibility, and will happily do some amount of research anyway.
Until reading your comment it didn't hit me that the site was so different from other brands, like Apple for instance. And I sure don't enjoy Apple's site. But then Ikea shops aren't traditional shops either, if sifting through pages of products isn't your thing, walking through sinuous paths all around the shop won't be either.
It's a fundamentally different public.