The IKEA Effect
Author: Tony Scorch

Ikea is an amazing store and an amazing concept. It proves
something to me that I have been saying for years. People go out
of their way for a deal. People also do not mind the "do it
yourself" concept. This in part is pretty amazing when you
consider the facts. When a new IKEA store opens they have 25,000
visitors for their opening. That is a lot of do it yourselfers.
There is a significant target demographic that wants nothing to
do with assembly or finishing a product. However the numbers of
people purchasing from these stores shows a staggering
difference. People will make a lot of effort to save a little
money. Consider this; IKEA carrys over 10000 items in their
stores and catalogs. The stores are the size of five football
fields. The stores are six times bigger than your average Target
or Walmart and they have a global following.

If you compare the concept of do it yourself to business you
get an interesting analogy. In business, most owners, vendors,
store operators, franchise owners, and webmasters do not really
embrace the concept of do it yourself. If people that are
contemplating a new business idea or start up business, they
find it hard to put in the effort that is needed to market a
site or business. Ironically in business that is exactly what
you need to do to succeed. I find that when I am in the trenches
writing articles or figuring out how to get links, that is when
I think of new ideas and concepts. It's an invigorating process
but it does take effort. You can easily see why that people hire
out so many avenues of promotion and marketing for their
businesses. The reason is because it's not fun. I would have to
say assembling furniture is not fun either, but I have to think
that most people think that saving money is fun. It must be fun
becasue they swarm to a new store opening like flys to fresh
meat.

If you were to build a business on the concept of do it
yourself or building something yourself, and you were to make it
a fun process, you would probably have a winner. Once the word
got out about how cool and fun your business concept is, you
would be flooded with visitors and people ready to give you
their hard earned money. The do it yourself concept does work,
but you have to be creative.

Being creative is fun but does involve some work and thus you
are starting to come around to the catch 22 of business. What
service or business do you offer? How do you make it fun? And
how do you make it easy? This is the $64,000 question (remember
that show?) When you stumble upon this formula you can have
something like the IKEA effect working for you. You never know,
people may take the day off of work to come visit you and find
out how fun it is to do business with you.


About The Author: Tony Scorch is a contributing editor to Do it
Yourself Manufacturing which is a research site for people
looking to start a new E-commerce website or business. You can
find it at http://www.diymanufacturing.com