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Furniture Giant Using Metrics to Focus on Consumer Customization


IKEA is widely known for their oddly named couches, picture-based assembly directions, and their meatball, but the furniture and home décor retailer is also known for their customization efforts and personalized digital content to fit their global audiences’ specific needs.

Personalization is Key


According to data reported by Similar Web, IKEA’s website attracts more than 17 million visitors on a monthly basis, 15.5 percent of that traffic comes from the United States (2017). Being a national ecommerce company, IKEA is very savvy in the way that they use their web analytics to tailor content to audiences in different companies, starting with their homepage. IKEA’s homepage takes advantage of data reported from the IP address and geolocation of the site visitor by offering a button straight to the website for the country that’s recognized by the geolocation. This tactic is IKEA’s first step in making their visitors feel welcome; Da Cambra reports that 53% of customers believe that retailers who personalize the shopping experience provide a valuable service (n.d.).

The IKEA.com splash page doesn’t take the usual approach of listing the countries in order of most popular among visitors or by the amount of traffic gained like many other ecommerce websites do. Typically the United States or the United Kingdom is listed first, but IKEA treats all countries equally. By not placing one country over the other, IKEA is aware that showing favoritism to other countries may tarnish their goal to continue to expand into other countries (Yunker, 2007). This is just a small example of how IKEA uses web analytics, like geolocation to personalize their customers shopping experience.



Most ecommerce retailers will be able to collect demographics of their online visitors through platforms like Google Analytics, and while IKEA does collect demographics, the retailer is also collecting psychographics to learn more about the customers experience and intent through survey data, collected through a chat bot. Gaining customer insight can be quite difficult when you only have access to analytics like traffic numbers and time on page; IKEA is taking a traditional method of surveying but using an online platform to engage with visitors on their site (Jones, 2017). This is a new way to collect analytics through one’s website; by using a chat bot, IKEA is able to have a conversation with customers while collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. Some examples of questions asked are:

  • How much of your shopping for furniture do you do with IKEA?
  • How many adults/children are typically with you when you visit one of our stores?

This type of data can assist in personalizing a customer’s experience even more. One example that relates directly to the digital world is psychographic data that IKEA collected from Pittsburgh customers. Customers responded better to ads that featured the low prices that sets IKEA apart from competitors; using this information, IKEA was able to customize their communications to those customers to speak directly to what they were interested in: low prices (Tedone, 2016).

Drop in In-Store Customers = Increase in Sales?


More recently, IKEA has begun to see a decrease in in-store customers but an increase in their online traffic, much like other retailers, because customers are shopping more online. One way that IKEA has used data collected from their on-site visitors is creating a tool on their website where customers have the ability to enter an item number after browsing online to see if their local IKEA store has the item in stock (Yunker, 2007). Not only has this feature given customers an action plan once they’ve browsed the site, it saves customers a wasted trip if the item happens to be out of stock. The product availability tool also shares the aisle and bin you can find the item in, in order to avoid getting lost in the sea of cardboard.

IKEA has taken notice of their online competition. In 2017, IKEA announced that they would begin testing sales of their furniture through larger online retailers, like Amazon. By taking the data of decreased in-store sales and increased online competitors that may be taking potential customers and web traffic away, IKEA is attempting to increase their sales by partnering with larger retailers (Milne, 2017).

IKEA has also worked on a website redesign in 2007. This website redesign is referred to as a Global Template, meaning that the template is basically a header with a very clean and easy to navigate menu (Yunker, 2007). This simplistic template is based on visitors’ engagement with the old website and the new version allows more room for products and promotions to be featured. This is also a consistent design element between the different country websites that IKEA tailors for each of their customers based on location.

Going Mobile

As most, if not all, ecommerce retailers have seen, IKEA has noticed the trend of mobile users continue to expand over the past few years. Using this data, IKEA has created multiple mobile apps to enhance the customer’s buying experience, but to also drive sales. IKEA has created apps like: 


  • IKEA Store: Users can browse IKEA items, add them to shopping lists, be notified of sales, and find a local store.
  • IKEA Catalog: Again, users can browse IKEA pieces, create “mood boards”, and see how furniture will look via a 3D feature.
  • IKEA Place: Users are exposed to more personalized content with the ability to view products virtually in their own homes before they enter foot into the store (Reddy, 2015). 


The approaches and tools that IKEA has developed based on insight gained from customers through web analytics has helped their website to become the “#1 customer touchpoint in the world for the company” (IKEA Case Study, 2012). IKEA has also used tactics like Facebook advertisements to drive in-store visits. In 2014, IKEA served ads to Welsh Facebook users and the ads received over 1.4 million impressions (Smith, 2014). The Cardiff store that this test was targeting saw 31% increase in store visits from those between 22-55, and an 11% increase among 26-35 year-olds compared to the group that had not been served ads (Smith, 2014). Not only is the furniture retailer using web analytics to drive traffic to their site, they’re using analytics to show an improvement in in-store visitors as well.


SEO Approach & Recommendations


Since IKEA’s main goal is drive sales, it wouldn’t make sense for the retail store to utilize landing pages that are designed for lead generation – and they don’t. A simple search for “Hemnes desk” leads me straight to the product page, streamlining the process to drive sales. As mentioned before, all of the IKEA websites, no matter the country, utilize a simplistic layout that is very easy to understand and doesn’t leave much room for confusion.



On the individual product pages, the “Buy Online” button sits above the fold, so users don’t have to scroll further down to find the button they’re looking for. Barron notes that in order to have a website built around the user experience, the site must have a “pleasing” design, an easy to follow roadmap from landing on the site to making a purchase, and content that speaks straight to the user (2017). She also notes that the CTA on a shorter website should be placed above the fold because there isn’t as much content to clutter the space. The bright blue “Buy Online” button stands out from the white background, drawing the eye to the button.

I would make two feature suggestions to help increase purchases on the IKEA site. I would recommend A/B testing the existing button with one that reads “Buy Online Now”, which may drive more urgency. I would also suggest having the product images on a carousel, especially on the mobile site. Formatting the images to automatically present on a carousel would help to showcase the product more, and currently the images lie below the fold, so desktop users may not see them. On mobile, the images are displayed on the right side and are very small and difficult to see, not making it ideal for the mobile user.

I would also suggest that IKEA test a pop-up or a corner tab for website visitors to add their information to subscribe for emails about promotions and deals. I think inbox reminders would help to keep IKEA top of mind and possibly help to increase online sales as well as in-store sales.



References

Barron, B. (2017, March 29). Where to Put Your Call-to-Actions Buttons? What the Research Says About CTAs. Wpmudev. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/call-to-action-research/

Da Cambra. (n.d.). The Importance of Personalized Ecommerce & 4 Examples of How It’s Done. Invesp. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-personalized-ecommerce-4-examples-of-how-its-done/

IKEA Case Study. (2012). HUGE. Harvard Business School. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from http://hbs.hugeinc.com/casestudies/ikea

IKEA Catalog App. (2018). Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikea-catalog/id386592716?mt=8

Jones, R. (2017, September 5). How IKEA are innovating in customer research. Smart Insights. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.smartinsights.com/marketplace-analysis/customer-analysis/how-ikea-are-innovating-in-customer-research/

Milne, R. (2017, October 9). Ikea turns to ecommerce sites in online sales push. Financial Times. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.ft.com/content/f7e09902-acf0-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130

Reddy, T. (2015, May 18). 13 Retail Companies Using Data to Revolutionize Online & Offline Shopping Experiences. Umbel. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.umbel.com/blog/retail/13-retail-companies-already-using-data-revolutionize-shopping-experiences/

Similar Web. (2017). IKEA.com Analytics. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.similarweb.com/website/ikea.com

Smith, C. (2014, May 14). Ikea's Facebook campaign uses mobile data to prove effectiveness. The Guardian. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/may/14/ikea-facebook-mobile-campaign

Tedone, C. (2016,  May 5). IKEA: How Big Data Shapes the Customer Experience. LinkedIn. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ikea-how-big-data-shapes-customer-experience-chiara-tedone/

Yunker, J. (2007). IKEA: Behind the Best Global Retail Web Site. Byte Level. Retrieved on February 16, 2018 from https://www.bytelevel.com/news/IKEA_article.pdf

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