Time is money — in IKEA’s case, that’s a literal truth with buy with your time campaign

IKEA stores are often located a bit far from the city center.

It makes sense given how big the stores are. The further it is from prime real estate, the cheaper it should be for IKEA to host its centers.

In today’s world, the retail world may have a problem with decreasing footfall, thanks to — 

• People getting busier by the day
• Increasing fuel prices & overall inflation
• The relentless spread of e-commerce

IKEA Dubai has an innovative solution at hand to bring more people to their stores.

And that is — 

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Buy With Your Time by IKEA

What did IKEA do?

IKEA added a time value to all their items. For example, a Jennyann is worth 1 hour 23 minutes and a plastic bag is worth 2 minutes of your time.

Customers can pay using their usual methods. Or they can use their time to pay for the item.

How do consumers earn time?

Consumers have to make a drive to IKEA.

IKEA checks Google Maps’ timeline to figure out how much time the user has spent driving to the store. They can then use that as credit. The price of an hour is calculated on the average wage in Dubai.

Users can store the time and keep it for a bigger purchase.

Here’s a video to explain that further — 

https://www.mofradmuntasir.com/media/ae3ae9b53a81e698b34e164fad0d5b7bVideo from YouTube

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Why Is This A Genius Campaign: IKEA’s Buy With Your Time

1. It addresses a consumer pain point

There’s no denying that footfall to the physical stores was significantly disrupted by COVID.

Consumers may need some warming up to start going back to stores. This just might be the incentive they need to make the trip.

Even before COVID, visiting IKEA would have been a planned event. It’s not a place where you go to grab a bite or purchase a small item. The commute itself was enough to deter consumers looking to get one or two items.

However, that changes as you can now pay for the small items with your time. In essence, the trip is not only free but can earn you enough to grab a meal or a couple of lower-priced items. Consumers will likely make the trip as a result and might end up purchasing more than they originally planned.

2. Consumers win, but IKEA doesn’t lose

The price of a liter of Octane in Dubai is around 4 UAE dirham. The average hourly rate is around 105 UAE Dirham.

Consumers might think that they are earning back their fuel cost (and more) by taking up this deal. A few trips to IKEA every month can earn them enough time credit to even cover their monthly fuel costs.

While it might seem that IKEA is losing when a consumer pays on time. In reality, one trip won’t buy a consumer much. They will have to visit multiple times to start getting the more expensive items.

Or in other words, IKEA is ensuring repeat visits by implementing this step.

3. Another reason to visit the store

IKEA stores are filled with reasons to visit.

Of course, there are all sorts of goods including furniture, home decor, appliances, and home essentials.

In addition, some people even visit just for the meatballs. You can have those meatballs for free (in exchange for time) using this campaign.

With this campaign, IKEA adds another reason. You’d be curious to see how they are converting your time. Your curiosity will propel you to make at least one trip to understand the mechanism.

And if you like what you see, then who knows, you might come back again very soon.

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Final Thoughts — IKEA’s Buy With Your Time Is a Genius Campaign

Like always, IKEA succeeds at delivering the unexpected.

It’s a business-friendly decision that puts customer needs first. Customers should respond to this positively. And when they do, this campaign might spread beyond UAE to all parts of the world.