IKEA Cadabra

Sometimes you just come across something with just the right balance of whimsy and marketing savvy.

Having been a business journalist all these years I’m a little short on personal whimsy but the Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA seems to have enough to spare. The chain opened a pop-up store in downtown Toronto. There are no shopping carts or big yellow bags. When you walk in a clerk hands you a wooden spoon with an RFID chip embedded in it.

You wave the spoon like a magic wand and tap it on a shelf. At the checkout you tap the spoon on another sensor, swipe a credit or debit card and purchases are delivered to you at the front of the store.

It’s not exactly the ideal format for a supermarket, especially since the pop-up stores only carry about 50 items. And it would cost a small fortune getting all those magic wands for your regular customers—not to mention the labor you’d need to fill orders.

However, we’re talking about the intersection of the physical store and the virtual or digital world. Why not think about pop-up stores with some interesting new twist on technology for special events? The opportunities for supermarkets are limitless—everything from Easter to Thanksgiving to Christmas and all those selling events in between. With the current reshaping that’s going on in retail, a limited time event like the one developed by Ikea might be just what’s needed to juice up that customer experience and start some buzz on social media.