

IKEA's delayed gratification results in 60% impulse buying - mceachen
http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/04/06/ikea-as-rat-maze/

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ugh
Aren’t IKEAs linear? I never had any problems navigating an IKEA since there
are only two directions to walk to. There are shortcuts (paths which obviously
don’t look like the main path) but I always ignore those (except for one – I
think every IKEA has a shortcut right at the very beginning that takes you to
the end) and just walk on the main path.

I guess my tip for everyone lost in IKEA would be to always stay on the main
path and to never use the shortcuts.

I actually prefer this linear design to the completely non-linear designs of
many other furniture stores I have been to. I certainly want to look at
everything when I’m at IKEA.

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whatusername
It's not so much that you get lost... it's that you have to walk past every
other item in the store.. Compared to say "Harvey Norman" where if you want a
couch -- you walk to the couches section..

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gjm11
It seems rather strange to describe this by saying that "delayed
gratification" leads to more impulse buying. What leads to more impulse buying
is making everyone look at all the merchandise.

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JCB_K
I worked at IKEA for quite a while, and it taught me so much about selling.
There's this 1 big book devoted to store layout, what product should be placed
where etc. For example, a big long wall with products spread out over the
whole length is too overwhelming. That's why half-way there's a "break": a big
colored display of 1 product, which is either new, or something to get rid of.

Another example, the first thing you see when you get to the marketplace
(where they sell all the small stuff) is an area with baskets of cheap high-
volume products. (cloth-hangers, napkins, etc.) This gives people the idea
that everything in the rest of the marketplace is cheap as well.

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TillE
The important thing about IKEA to me is that they _do_ offer cheap stuff
that's quite nice. For example, I was looking for curtains a while ago, and
found that IKEA offered a broad selection that were half the price of anyone
else's cheapest garbage.

I never ever go through the whole showroom path, though - I just cut through
the registers and head straight to the marketplace. Works well.

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Sukotto

      I end up spending 20 minutes walking in circles trying to 
      find the route back to children’s furniture (or some other 
      designated meeting spot). I wind up passing the same mock 
      studio apartment half a dozen times, blood pressure rising 
      with each new sighting.
    

Is that just hyperbole or is the author really that unable to navigate?

It's easy to bypass the showroom areas if you pay any attention at all to any
of the maps.

Sure, every Ikea has a route they prefer you to take... but there are frequent
"Shortcut to ____" signs to allow you to move quickly between departments and
maps with "you are here" on them showing where all the departments are.

What exactly is the problem?

[edit] Interesting video. According to the presenter, people generally only
look forwards and thus miss the shortcuts located at the side (or behind as he
claims) of the walkway.

Do people really not look all around when they enter a room? That seems so
strange to me.

Also, what area of study do you need to be in to do a Phd in how people
maneuver through a shopping centre? Sociology? Psychology? That seems really
cool and I'd like to learn more about it

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varikin
I went to Ikea with my wife shortly after seeing the Scott Pilgrim movie (yes
this is an important detail). We were looking for something very specific, so
I looked at the map and pointed out all the little shortcut doors that look
like "Employee Only" style doors, except they are not employee only. My wife
made a comment that it was like the doors that appear out of nowhere in Scott
Pilgrim. She had, in several years of going to Ikea, never noticed them.

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henrikschroder
One benefit of living in the holy mother land of IKEA is that we have stores
that are from before their discovery of the one true store layout, and they
are much easier to navigate because you have more freedom to go between
sections.

That said, watch the video in the article, it shows how "brilliant" the
standard layout is, and how it forces you into a state of mind that makes you
shop more.

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eli
Is 60% high? What percent of the things people buy at Walmart are not on their
list?

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Gaussian
The oldest of the Chicago IKEA stores (Schaumburg) was allowed to be arranged
without the blinder walls until just a few months ago. Having never been to a
different IKEA, I was confused upon walking in last week. I did feel as if I
was in a rat maze and I was commenting somewhat loudly on this fact to my
wife. A saleswoman overheard me and explained that this IKEA, after years of
being a rogue outlier, was forced to arrange the store as dictated by the
arbiters of shopping wisdom in Sweden. She apologized and expressed regret at
the fact. Before this happened, a shopper could see all of the other floors at
once and get a good view, from almost anywhere, of the large atrium that
pierces the middle of the store. Now we get to look at painted hardboard
panels advertising different IKEA wares. Plus I have no idea where I am
because I can't easily view the open area. Not an improvement.

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JulianMorrison
This kind of thing seems too much like hostile subversion of my brain, I don't
approve of it.

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Tichy
So selling IKEA on the idea of indoor navigation with smartphones might not be
so promising after all.

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zheng
The first thing that I thought of was "hasn't this guy and his wife heard of
cell phones?"

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willyt
They always seem to have terrible reception in ikea stores. Probably due to
large areas of steel cladding and RC slabs acting like a faraday cage. The
building owner needs to actively supply booster base stations to provide a
good mobile signal in a building like this and Ikea don't seem to do this.

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JonnieCache
I wouldn't be surprised if this is deliberate. Its pretty well known that ikea
never allow any clocks nor any natural light inside their stores, so customers
lose all sense of time.

Building for poor mobile reception would just add to this sense of isolation.

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Maro
I hate the IKEA layout, so I shop at the competition (here in Europe it's
KIKA).

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gamble
> One result of Ikea’s rat-maze design: 60% of the things people buy there
> were not on their original shopping list.

Another result is that I avoid shopping at IKEA whenever possible.

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VB6_Foreverr
I visited IKEA for the first time last week. I guess having all the names of
items in Swedish is officially viewed as a feature. I think it's a bug as it's
easier to remember a name than a (bar-code) number or a word you cant
pronounce. I needed a set of a particular item which always come in 4s. When I
got to the pickup area they were all loose, I assumed someone had opened a box
so I picked up a sealed box went to the self-service checkout, scanned, paid
and left. Hours later and 160 km away I saw that I had only paid for 1 item
and had a box of 16. The barcode on the box was the same as the one for each
item. Next time I'm there I'll take back the excess and pay the extra but I
don't think it's entirely my fault so I'm not going to go out of my way to do
a 300km round trip

