Nothing washes away buyer’s remorse like a plate of Swedish meatballs

[rcjordan]

^{A good read, particularly since all my feeds are about Ukraine.}

How Ikea tricks you into buying more stuff
https://thehustle.co/how-ikea-tricks-you-into-buying-more-stuff/

[ergophobe]

That's a surprisingly interesting marketing deep dive. My better read than I expected.

The IKEA maze and food court are obvious, but the decoy pricing I did not know about it. It's a famous example with respect to magazine pricing (I think from Predictably Irrational). But I didn't realize IKEA was doing it. Also the "price first, design second" is something I was vaguely aware of, but I don't think I fully appreciated it.

[DrCool]

One thing I have noticed about Ikea: When we have to travel to get to one we definitely spend more time.

The closest Ikea to us here is over in the Seattle area, about a 5 hour drive and whenever we would go we would spend a few hundred dollars. Same thing when we moved to Jacksonville and the closest was in Orlando. If we were going to take the time to make the trip we were going to buy more stuff than we probably needed.

But when they opened an Ikea in Jacksonville it was MUCH easier to just run in and grab the one or two things we needed. We even got pretty good about figuring out all the shortcuts to get right to the kitchen area or to where the lamps are or whatever. Overall though we probably spent less per year even though we would go much more often.

By not opening stores everywhere I would guess they increase their average yearly spend per customer.

And more than a few times we would drop our kids off at the in store day care and have a date that included a couple hours wandering around the store without kids clamoring all over the place. With the kids in tow we were much more surgical in our approach but without the kids we could spend more time looking and finding things we needed to buy. So that I am sure increases sales too. 

[Brad]

> Swedish meatballs

Remember way back when Ikea meatballs were found to have horse meat in them? 

[ergophobe]

>> horse meat

As a Swedish company, they probably didn't realize that Americans would freak out. I've never understood the American issue with horse meat. AFAIK, it's just a standard meat in Europe and generally considered a low-fat option.

[Brad]

It was part of a nearly EU-wide food labeling scandal.  Processors were slipping horse meat into products without labeling it.  For years EU food regulations had been imposed on small farm based traditional food producers in member states and it turned out that it was the big multi-nationals that were doing the real cheating on a massive scale.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/horse-meat-found-in-ikeas-swedish-meatballs/51342/

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/02/horse-meat-discovered-in-ikea-meatballs