How Can IKEA Create 60% Impulse Shopping By Losing Its Way?

Unique store line design makes

Alan Penn, a professor of Architectural Computing at the University of London in Britain, recently said in a speech that he thought that IKEA might be the greatest store in history.

Research shows that one of the main reasons for IKEA furniture sales is so good is its unique store line design.

This design led IKEA to create an amazing achievement not only for furniture stores but for all stores -- up to "60%" purchases, not in the list that customers originally wanted to buy.

Of course, the design of IKEA's innovation is also an important reason for customers to buy goods beyond their plans, but the design of store line is really important.

You see, the design of IKEA's branches in the world is the same: walking in, as if walking into a labyrinth, you just want to buy Lamps and lanterns, but it's been around for a long time before you find the lamps and lanterns. When you meet your family and friends somewhere, you don't find the place at the time. You often go through five or six times in a place like an idiot, but you still can't find the goods you want to buy.

What is this principle and why 60% of them are not in the original list?

The explanation of the professor is very interesting: the strategy of IKEA is that no matter how long you planned to visit IKEA, it will let you arrange the time for the purchase of goods, and spend it unconsciously in the sample room, which is always the most designed and cheap product of IKEA, and the most creative space layout.

When you get out of the labyrinth and go to the shopping area, you have automatically added several things from the "planned shopping" to "crazy shopping".

Professor's graduate student went to IKEA store to make a computer model, and found that IKEA's line design, with the tendency of people moving toward the "farthest" direction, ingeniously designed people's "line of sight". At the same time, unlike the ordinary stores, the maze design was adopted. In IKEA, people naturally followed other people's footsteps and went to the same direction. This kind of "no need to follow the brain", made the customers with strong autonomy in other stores gradually unload their defenses, and easily and naturally put all kinds of IKEA products in their minds.

The problem is that such a tortured route actually discounts customers' shopping experience. Why do customers often go back to "get lost" after a few months?

The secret is IKEA's manufacturing of "Delayed Grati cation".

"Delaying pleasure" is that you want to lose weight. You must work hard and have a diet first. After three months, you can see yourself becoming thin.

Scientists have confirmed that this kind of "delaying pleasure" brings happiness several times.

IKEA also makes it frustrating for customers to find no way out, but the pleasure of finding things is delayed. Finally, the pleasure of buying things will be several times the original planned shopping. Therefore, it is hard to get rid of the lost customers and feel really willing to be lost again next time.

More interestingly, the professor points out that IKEA does not have no "shortcuts". They are hidden in places that look the most unlikely.

This design allows customers who have come several times to lose their way and start shopping directly, which will give them a special sense of achievement and become a loyal customer of IKEA because they think they know IKEA best.

What an ingenious design! Next, we can think about it. Does IKEA really have to occupy such a wide space? Is it possible for ordinary small shops to create a roadmap of "lost, procrastinate and happier" like IKEA? And IKEA's shopping idea has not yet been used on the Internet. Can anyone design a new type of shopping website based on IKEA's line theory?