IKEA…Reintroducing trust
Rubbed my eyes an extra time checking out from my local IKEA Saturday morning. No manned check-out counters but 100% self-service. So… I scanned my purchases, paid them and simply walked out. Looked back over my shoulder a couple of times to check if someone was following me, but no. Strange how honesty can make you feel criminal – please control my bags somebody! No really, good thinking, IKEA and thanks for reintroducing simple stuff like trust! I’m sure we’ll get used to it. And that you will manage to almost double your check-out throughput (an IKEA employee told me from 45 to 75 clients per line per hour) by letting us do the job.
Category: Innovation, Service design
Yes, it’s surely a great idea, which a can’t understand more shops have introduced yet. The throughput will be paying for the investment in no time for shops like IKEA, Bilka and shops of that size.
Date: December 8th, 2008 at 11:17 Name: Rasmus LynggaardI read an article about it, not long ago, from Sweeden I think, and they found that losses were almost the same after introducing the self scanning system as it was before. All they did was some random tests of people.
I almost can’t wait to go to IKEA and not have to spend time in a queue…
The future is here huh? I kinda like it, though some people might lose their jobs :-(
Date: December 12th, 2008 at 16:17 Name: Michael VestergaardAnd it would be great to avoid the queue for once.
As with any removal of a weakness a previously hidden weakness is being revealed with this great idea, namely that the laser scanner is a seriously studpid technology that makes the experience more sociologically interesting than really effecient. But that is also the beauty of it – in only speeds up the introduction of the RFID tag, which will really change our world.
Date: December 19th, 2008 at 00:45 Name: David FellahInteresting account. Just made me think that IKEA hardly designed the ‘trust’ part very well if you had to look over your shoulder after paying.
Date: January 18th, 2009 at 22:28 Name: sebastian(or perhaps, it’s just that first time experiences are always filled with a certain amount of doubt?)
We have the same over here in the Netherlands in some of the local supermarkets (www.ah.nl). Its great! No more waiting in line!
Date: February 9th, 2009 at 16:56 Name: Marc Fonteijn