When it rains the price of umbrellas goes…

IKEAComplete this sentence: “When it rains, the price of umbrellas goes __.”

If you guessed up you’d be right in most places. But at IKEA stores, you’d be wrong.

Here’s how they price their umbrellas:

IKEA umbrellas
Sunny Day: $ 10
Rainy Day: $ 3

Yes, on rainy days, umbrellas are cheaper :o) What a nice way to make customers happy.

This is no coincidence – happiness matters at IKEA. Their founder, Ingvar Kamprad, once said this:

Work should always be fun for all colleagues. We all only have one life. A third of life is work. Without desire and fun, work becomes hell.

To me, this attitude only makes sense. Making your employees happy makes the business more profitable and making your customers happy keeps them coming back.

It ain’t rocket surgery, and fortunately more and more companies are figuring this out and committing themselves to happiness at work.

Your take

What about your workplace? Does happiness matter where you work? Does anyone care whether the people and customers are happy? Please write a comment, I’d love to know.

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13 thoughts on “When it rains the price of umbrellas goes…”

  1. That’s how Giordano in Singapore used to sell their umbrellas too.
    It definitely boost sales as people think it is a better deal.
    Plus, it is good for the company’s image.

  2. Wow, what a wonderful article. I am sharing this everywhere that I can. If only everyone would take this attitude, what a beautiful place the world will be. Let’s fuel the happiness revolution – one smile at a time!

    : ]

  3. Absolutely! We’ve found time and time again that keeping employees happy not only brings about an enhanced office environment, it leads to wonderful creative work. For example, before we begin a meeting, we always start with a bit of small talk. Allowing our coworkers to “shoot the breeze” together loosens everyone up and gets those creative juices flowing. In fact, it’s that very ability for us to joke around with one another that brought about our agency’s creation of the AFLAC duck. So, 100% yes: happy employees matter. After all, happy employees often result in happy customers.

  4. This is a very nice gesture on the part of IKEA, and I guess as one of the comments said, happy customers will be repeat customers – and I guess also NOISY customers, this is what you would tell your friends about.

    I guess this kinda explains some of the IKEA-fanatasicm!

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