Ikea Becomes First Retailer To Let Customers Pay Using Time

Ikea is now letting customers pay for goods with their time. Yes, that’s right: the more time customers spend traveling to Ikea, the more they can buy. Because, beginning from this month, Ikea Dubai is running a campaign that will allow customers to spend their time as a currency, simply by showing Ikea checkout staff their Google Maps timeline, which proves how much time they’ve spent traveling to Ikea stores. While restricted at this moment in time to Ikea Dubai, this promotion opens the door to a significant and profound change in how consumers purchase goods, and in how they relate to brands. Timed to coincide with the opening of a new store in Jebel Ali, this new campaign encourages potential customers to visit Ikea more frequently, so that they can notch up more time spent traveling to Ikea’s outlets. By extension, it encourages them to spend more time in Ikea’s stores, which in turn will ultimately encourage them to buy more goods. Read more at Forbes.