This is the clever psychology behind IKEA’s soft-serve ice cream

Imagine walking through IKEA, filling your cart with (un)necessary items as you stroll along. Finally, you reach the checkout. Shopping makes you hungry. Time for a snack; a hot dog, Swedish meatballs or a soft-serve ice cream. The temptation is difficult to resist every time, isn’t it? There’s a reason for that.

Clever psychology

You’re therefore not the only one who can’t resist buying something tasty for the car at the end of the trip. Every year, IKEA earns around 1.5 billion from selling food alone, which is 5 percent of its total revenue. A large part of that is spent in the restaurant itself, but especially at the end of visits to the home furnishings store. A clever psychological move.

A little consolation

Because finding your way through the maze while shopping carts bump into each other, having to drag that extremely heavy cabinet onto your cart yourself in the enormous warehouse, and then having to pay an excessively high amount in an all-too-long queue — we make plenty of impulse purchases here — isn’t exactly fun. These negative experiences need to be compensated for, and an inexpensive hot dog or soft-serve ice cream happens to be perfect for that.

Because for just a few euros, you can still end your Saturday afternoon on a positive note this way. The hot dog and ice cream even taste so good that you’ve long since forgotten about that long queue. This positive peak in the experience of IKEA customers ensures that they keep coming back, and so do you.

Also read:

• IKEA reveals kitchen secret: this is how you make Swedish meatballs
• Why FEBO’s soft-serve ice cream is the best in the world
• Seven unbelievable facts about fast-food restaurants — you didn’t know these yet