Why does navigating Ikea's human maze transform shopping from a chore into a unique experience? As champions of creativity and free will, why do we find ourselves drawn to the fixed, linear path that Ikea cleverly designs?
**Ikea’s unique experience builds on psychological ideas, like sunk-cost fallacy, to draw in consumers and encourage them to purchase more items.**
If you are not already familiar with how an Ikea trip usually goes, it all starts at the showroom, where there are many different rooms set up to display what Ikea’s furniture and other products look like in realistic settings that you can interact with. From this first moment, an endowment effect is triggered.
The endowment effect describes how an individual places greater value on objects that they own compared to if they did not own them, even in fake scenarios. In Ikea’s case, they make use of these interactive showrooms to let their shoppers develop unintentional attachments to the objects that they interact with. As you explore the different rooms, you can interact with the furniture and imagine yourself working in the fake office, eating in the fake dining room, and hosting gatherings in the fake living rooms. As you daydream these scenarios, you naturally develop some attachment to these products, making it more likely that the item will be put in their cart or on their wish-list.
As customers follow the given path marked by arrows pointing in one direction, they are unconsciously following the scarcity principle. This is the phenomenon that makes people place higher value on objects that they feel are limited in quantity or availability. The fixed flow of Ikea’s path creates a sense of urgency, prompting customers to add desired items to their cart, even if they are unsure, because their time in each section feels limited, and the path compels them to keep moving forward.
Ikea’s in-person experience offers customers an escape from the choice overload many feel when they browse through purchases online. Choice overload summarizes the overwhelming feeling that occurs when an individual is offered too many choices. For example, the internet offers an endless list of potential furniture choices, which can cause decision paralysis. Meanwhile, Ikea has a limited number of furniture options, including the sizes and colors.
In addition to the variety of items, Ikea’s furniture is usually minimalist and aims to be more functional than artistic, which prevents customers from spending excessive amounts of time thinking about the aesthetic of the products. This limited variety and simplistic design makes it easier for customers to select the furniture they want and ****contributes to customers’ view of Ikea as a positive shopping experience.
The one-way direction of the path also takes away the cognitive burden of having to choose what item to look for first or which direction to go, as in most traditional retail stores. This simple maze provides most customers a comfortable lazy-river-like journey through the store.
A picture I took at my local Ikea, when the checkout line stretched to the other side of the building
By the time customers have made their way to the end of the showroom and into the marketplace or self-serve furniture area, it feels too inconvenient to turn around and put back any items they no longer want. This exhibits the sunk-cost fallacy, which is the reluctance to stop doing something you have already poured effort, time, or money into. Ikea’s one-way path and separate floor plans make it hard for customers to change their mind about things that they have put in their cart.