Sneaky Ways IKEA Tricks You Into Spending Money

Since its humble origins in the small town of Älmhult, Sweden in 1943, IKEA has exploded to become one of the most recognizable and successful international furniture brands in history. According to Statista, around 90% of Americans are familiar with the brand, with almost half reporting they enjoy its products. The brand's worldwide revenue was estimated to be roughly $30.5 billion in 2024. This impressive income is owed in large part to the chain's extensive geographical range, with more than 490 warehouse stores in dozens of different countries.

IKEA has firmly established a reputation for providing modern, elegant Scandinavian lifestyle items at modest prices, albeit with assembly required. Yet, the brand's full image goes far beyond that of an economical furniture brand. The company is famed for its long, winding megastores, tasty meatballs, and confusing directions. While these features may seem like a fluke, they're actually part of a carefully calculated strategy to encourage customers to spend more money. This doesn't mean you have to avoid IKEA altogether. But you should be aware of how this major brand name subconsciously gets you to empty your wallet.

While most stores use a simple layout of various aisles within a square, IKEA warehouses are notoriously complicated to navigate. The brand utilizes a maze-like design requiring visitors to travel through every section. Even if you know exactly what you're coming in to purchase and where it's located, you'll still have to walk past different sections before exiting. This labyrinth design is purposeful. In a genius way, IKEA wants you to wave every offer in front of you before you can check out — dramatically increasing the chances that something will catch your eye.

If you notice a lack of clocks or windows, that's completely intentional, too. Shoppers who know the time could be more likely to cut their visit short, sticking with a predetermined timeline. When you have no clock to tell you the time or even a window to give you an idea of the time of day, it's easier to lose track of it. That means more time spent in the store, and a higher chance of making a purchase. This phenomenon is known as time distortion. Effectively, IKEA is taking advantage of the human brain's inability to keep track of time reliably without external metrics or indicators. Unlike dollar stores that are sneakily small, IKEA takes the exact opposite approach but toward the same goal of boosting profits.

IKEA has built a brand on offering quality products at affordable prices. Ironically, these economic deals are a key way the Swedish brand encourages people to spend more money. How does that work, exactly? Well, it's due to a little cognitive illusion called perceived savings. Studies have shown that people are more willing to spend money — even if they hadn't planned on it — when they think potential savings are on the line. Knowing this psychological trigger, companies like IKEA utilize bargain prices and hefty discounts to give consumers the feeling of saving, even while spending. Plus, lower prices generally increase the number of items customers can afford to purchase in one visit.

The furniture giant often employs language that tells customers they're getting a deal, such as "new lower price" or "our lowest price." IKEA's as-is section, in particular, can be a great place to find a bargain. Shoppers can also join IKEA Family — a free-to-join rewards program that yields special member-only deals, discounts on delivery, and even a free drink. Like many stores, IKEA also uses the classic odd-even pricing scheme, such as $19.99, to entice people to spend more. Unfortunately, IKEA is one of many popular companies worried about tariffs.

IKEA takes full advantage of its massive warehouse stores by setting up elaborate displays to create an interactive and immersive space with its products. Instead of tossing a product on a shelf or a piece of furniture on the floor, the Swedish brand takes the time to decorate complete rooms using its items. These showrooms are dotted throughout their stores to demonstrate how IKEA products can look in a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and even on a patio in the backyard.

These showrooms make it easier for customers to see how a product would look in their home. They can get a visual and tactile perspective on products, giving them more information to make an informed purchase. This, coincidentally, increases the chances of a purchase. These showrooms also work to tie multiple products together by showing how an entire lineup of IKEA products looks together. For example, a shopper might love the look of a bedframe but only on top of a particular rug or with specific bedding. This chain reaction can lead to an increase in purchases.

Ever stand with a pile of IKEA parts around you, wondering why anyone pays to put something together themselves? Science actually has an answer for that seemingly implausible reality. Studies have found that people often place a higher value on things when they're involved in it's creation. Fittingly dubbed the IKEA effect, this phenomenon helps describe why people are willing to spend money on furniture they have to assemble themselves.

In a Harvard Business School working paper, participants were tasked with creating Lego sets, IKEA boxes, and origami. In the end, researchers discovered that people valued their handmade creations as much as professionally created versions. Furthermore, they showed a preference for buying their amateur items. Whether IKEA dove deep into human psychology to pull this one off or simply stumbled upon it when trying to save a few dollars, it's one of the sneakiest ways to trick people into spending more money.

From the outside, it may seem like a global furniture brand doesn't give much thought to its target audience. After all, everybody needs furniture, regardless of their age, ethnicity, income level, professional background, or geographical location, right? Kind of. IKEA may have a broad selection from which most people can find something worth buying, but the brand is focused on optimizing its revenue. This is why IKEA intentionally targets young urbanites living in cities, large towns, or highly populated suburbs. 

This demographic comprises students and young professionals undergoing major changes in their lives, including graduation, higher education, careers, and marriage — significant milestones that come with a high likelihood of moving. In the U.S. alone, 48% of people are considering moving in 2025, according to a survey from LendingTree. When someone moves, they tend to need a lot of furniture to make their new home comfortable, and that's the space IKEA successfully fills. This consumer targeting increases the spend-per-customer that the chain can expect.

While IKEA isn't one of America's most overpriced grocery store chains, it does use its food options to generate more revenue. You may have heard about IKEA's iconic meatballs, or even had the opportunity to try the store's delicacies in person. The Swedish chain offers food and drinks mainly to prolong the time that customers spend inside an IKEA warehouse. People are less likely to leave the store if their needs are being met — like hunger.

With more than one billion meatballs sold annually, per IKEA, the strategy is clearly working. And it's no wonder since this strategy is backed up by science. Research published in the Business and Management Research journal found that those who spent time in IKEA's food court areas ended up spending four times more than their hungry counterparts. Shoppers who skipped food and refreshments spent around $15, on average, while those with a full stomach racked up bills averaging around $64.

With hundreds of locations across the country and big plans to expand, IKEA remains a primarily brick-and-mortar chain. Yet, the brand is making moves to increase its virtual user base. Recognizing that many would-be customers can't find the time or means to travel to a regional warehouse, IKEA has focused on expanding the store's virtual presence through the IKEA app. The app optimizes a store's virtual accessibility, allowing customers to purchase items online from wherever, and at whatever time, works best for the customer. 

The company went a step further by adopting the most updated technology for its IKEA Place app. It uses virtual reality technology to show how a particular piece of furniture or item looks inside a person's home or apartment. Simply select a product and point your phone's camera where you want to see that particular item. Despite this digital expansion, IKEA remains committed to exclusively selling its products at its physical locations or on its own site, refusing to sell through third-party vendors.

Complementing the winding layouts and time-distorting designs, IKEA buildings are commonly built far away from other buildings. This is due in part to their impressive size, but the isolation also works to augment the time shoppers spend wandering around. The Swedish brand consciously chooses locations that are removed from city centers or urban areas, so customers feel as though leaving empty-handed or cutting their time short would be a waste of time and money. Known as the sunk cost fallacy, this natural inclination pushes people to continue investing resources toward an endeavor in which they've already invested considerably.

For example, if you drive an hour to get to an IKEA store far away and spend another hour walking around, leaving with nothing would likely feel like more of a waste than spending $100 on something you didn't necessarily need. On paper, you're down $100, but the expenditure feels like it justifies the hours and emotional energy you already committed. This psychological phenomenon influences our financial decisions daily and is one of the more consequential investment traps that could cost you.

IKEA Family members get a competitive 90-day price protection on most IKEA products, giving shoppers a three-month window to potentially receive a price reduction. This means that if a particular item's cost is reduced within 90 days of purchase, a consumer can be refunded the difference. Since the furniture giant is always offering new deals and limited-time discounts, this price match is intended to keep consumers from delaying a purchase with the expectation of a future price cut. Although this seems like a reasonable gesture, it's another sneaky way IKEA gets you to spend more money.

This 90-day price protection CAN trigger the same buying impulse caused by an actual discount — without requiring IKEA to actually reduce its income. While it's true that IKEA routinely places items on discount, the vast majority of their products maintain their standard price. That means customers face low odds that their purchase will actually see a price cut within the 90-day window. Don't forgo this potential cost-saver, but don't rely on it, either.

As previously discussed, IKEA sets up carefully curated showrooms to encourage people to buy more, but there's actually an even sneakier tactic being used. The entire warehouse is ultimately set up like a giant display showroom, complete with professional lighting and hand-selected paints. The bright, clear, white lights used throughout the warehouse help to maintain the modern, luxurious, and clean aesthetic. This illumination works to accentuate the best features of the chain's products, literally placing them in the best light.

IKEA uses ceiling lights, lamps, and other types of lighting to highlight various features, draw shoppers' attention to specific areas, and make the store's layout appear as enticing as possible. This isn't based on a hunch, either. Research indicates that lighting can actually impact spending behaviors. For example, bright LED lights have been shown to lead to higher sales. Brighter stores also make it easier for consumers to review and compare various products, something that works with IKEA's wide range of goods.

A researcher at University College London found that 60% of IKEA purchases were impulse buys. In other words, customers tend to leave the store with more unintended purchases than planned ones. That is because one of the sneaky ways that IKEA drives sales is by strategically placing smaller, low-cost items in high-traffic areas where shoppers regularly pass by. Aisle corners and checkout lanes are some of the most commonly targeted areas. These items are designed to look extremely cheap compared to the rest of IKEA's offerings. The stark contrast between larger pieces of furniture and small $1.99 trinkets can easily lead people to make unplanned purchases.

Yet another product placement strategy used by IKEA is called the decoy price effect. IKEA will display a series of progressively nicer items with progressively higher price tags. By presenting three options, consumers are likely to change their preference to one of the two bookend priced options. The middle priced item serves as the decoy — intended to make the cheapest option look like a steal and the most expensive look like a great deal.