While discussing Google Analytics last week, I mentioned about the funnel and the slippery slide. It suddenly reminded me of one of my all time favorite stores. IKEA. It’s really too bad they have limited presence here in the US. When I was living back in Malaysia, I love IKEA not only for their products but their marketing. If you’ve been any of their stores, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

When you go to IKEA, everyone travels in a one way traffic. There are no checkout lanes in the front of the store. If you want something, even if you know where it is located in the store, you pretty much have to walk through the whole store. If you think that’s going to make people mad then you haven’t yet been to IKEA. They really do a good job of combining design with great prices.

For a marketer, I think that is brilliant because you make people see all the nice things they want but forgot or missed. Kinda like a slippery slide – get the attention, get their interest and lead them through and the end point is always – checkout. Of course this is retail, a whole different beast from online marketing. Something like that will only piss off online shoppers – they haven’t done very well online in my books but… it’s the ‘funnel’ principle in practice. Always thought that neat and wanted to share.