Thread by @finshots

Can time really be used as money?

While we’ve all heard of the famous phrase “Time is money”, IKEA went a step further and took it literally. (1/8)

That’s right, last year IKEA Dubai began accepting time as a form of #money, which was dubbed as their campaign “Buy with your time”. And by this, they mean not just any time, but the time it takes you to drive to an IKEA store. (2/8)

But why did they do it? The thing is, due to their requirement of a spacious mega store, most IKEA outlets are located in the outskirts of a city. Due to this, customers have to spend long hours commuting. (3/8)

So as an incentive for customers to visit the store, IKEA started accepting time as money.

So how does this work?
(4/8)

Well, let’s say it took you an hour to get to an IKEA store. If you simply show the cashier your Google map timeline, which has the record of your trip, they can calculate what your time is worth. (5/8)

The trick here is that they take the average family income per month, and then find the average income per hour. So for instance, if the income a family makes on an hourly basis is 105 Dirhams in Dubai, their 1hr will be worth 105 Dirhams. (6/8)

And since they have labeled every item in the store with the price in money and time, you’ll know what you can buy with your time. (7/8)

Needless to say, this campaign was an instant hit & got the company $14 million worth of free #marketing. And the fun part is that even if it takes you just 5 minutes to get to an IKEA store, you can still trade it in for a veggie hotdog! (8/8)

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