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Effective communication
Persuasion techniques
Closing a sale
In the 1950s, manufacturers noticed that powdered cake mix sales were suffering. All the consumer had to do was add water. But this process was too easy: It removed the effort and emotion from baking. When manufacturers took out the egg powder and made consumers add their own fresh eggs to the mix, sales went back up.
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127 reads
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In general, retailers design their stores with 3 goals in mind:
Most companies use store layouts that give ...
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205 reads
In a 2011 Harvard Business School study, researchers divided subjects into 2 groups: One was given pre-assembled origami, and the other was given paper to build their own origami. At the end of the experiment, subjects were asked how much they’d pay for the creations.
The result: Th...
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125 reads
Strategically placed mirrors: When you catch a glimpse of yourself in an Ikea room, you’re primed to believe you belong in it.
Contextual positioning: Rooms are set up exactly as they would be in a natural setting. Familiarity encourages purchasing.
...
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183 reads
Ikea often follows a “price first, design later” philosophy: It starts with a price target — say $6.99 for a new stool — then reverse-engineers the design process to meet that goal.
And once an Ikea product hits the shelves, the company is militant about maintaining or even reducing, its re...
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134 reads
Ikea has an enviable position in the struggling retail landscape. As of 2021, it boasts:
It’s estimated that 60% of Ikea purc...
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418 reads
Ikea sells meatballs and lamps under the same roof. It has been described as both “Disneyland for adults” and “a nightmare hellscape.” And the idea of spending an afternoon stuck in a one-way maze — then going home and assembling your own bookcase — isn’t exactly appealing.
But these eccent...
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The unique one-way labyrinth design of Ikea:
Forces wider product exposure: At most retail shops, customers only lay eyes on ~33% of all the items for sale; Ikea’s layout herds shoppers past its entire catalog.
Creates a false sense of scarcity: When...
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Ikea has mastered the use of a psychological principle called the Gruen effect — when the layout of a store is so bewildering that it makes you for...
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Something else you’ll likely see at play in Ikea is decoy pricing: when a retailer throws a less appealing option into the mix to make other products seem like a better deal.
Let’s say there are 2 cabinets for sale: a $40 budget unit, and an $80 unit with more premium m...
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153 reads
The main ingredient of the company’s affordability is a technique called flat packing.
The company reduces manufacturing, logistics, and fulfilment costs by disassembling items and fitting pieces together in a box as tightly as possible.
“We hate air” is a c...
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Ikea may be a home furnishings store, but it also reels in ~$2.4B in food sales per year (~5% of its overall revenue).
To put that into perspective: If you were to look at Ikea’s food operation as a stand-alone entity, it would rank as one of the 50 highest-grossing food chains in the world...
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121 reads
The real objective of selling cheap food at the furniture store is to reinforce Ikea’s low price profile.
A person might not know if $500 is a good price for a couch, but they surely know that $0.99 is a fantastic deal for breakfast. The idea is that customers will associate Ikea’s low food...
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110 reads
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If you make things more laborious, the consumers will value them more.
In the 1950s, a US food company wanted to sell more of its brand of instant cake mixes. They were advised to replace powdered eggs with fresh eggs because the all-instant cake mix makes baking too easy. It un...
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