Ikea’s enormous warehouse-style outlets are usually located on the outskirts of cities. Thus, a lot of time is spent driving to stores.
To incentivise store visits, Ikea in Dubai allowed customers to purchase items using the travel time disclosed by their Google Maps timeline. So, the more time you spend traveling to IKEA, the more you can spend.
All the items in the store were outfitted with tags which showed the price in both time and money. At checkout, customers were given the option to pay with cash, time, or a combination of both.
The ‘time currency’ was created through a simple calculation, based on the average salary in Dubai.
With ‘Buy With YourTime’, Ikea took the global retail industry by storm, becoming the first retailer to make time a currency.
The initiative increased footfall by 32% and earned more than $14 million worth free media.
