ColumnistsAug 11, 2026
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Peter Smith: The IKEA Effect and Bridal Branding
In a new column, Peter Smith posits that people actually enjoy putting together IKEA furniture, and the same is true for engagement rings.
Peter Smith is an industry consultant, speaker, sales trainer, and author. He can be reached via email at TheRetailSmiths@gmail.com.
The IKEA Effect is a psychological principle that suggests we are likely to place greater value on something when we have played some part in its construction.
There are no prizes for guessing the origins of the principle, especially if you’ve ever shopped at the iconic Swedish retailer (try the meatballs if you haven’t already).
The principle, of course, is not just for IKEA; it holds true in myriad studies and across multiple real-world examples.
The authors of the paper, “The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love,” first published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2012, cited studies dating as far back as the 1950s.
When instant cake mixes first came to market, housewives were suspicious of the newfangled idea.
How could it be any good, they reasoned, if they didn’t need to do anything at all?
It was only when the mixes were changed to require the addition of an egg that they began to take off.
The simple act by the user, that little bit of effort, made the revised mixes a big hit.
The paper, authored by Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely, also mentions Build-A -Bear Workshop, another concept that requires consumer effort to complete the finished product.
Related stories will be right here …
There are no prizes for guessing the origins of the principle, especially if you’ve ever shopped at the iconic Swedish retailer (try the meatballs if you haven’t already).
The principle, of course, is not just for IKEA; it holds true in myriad studies and across multiple real-world examples.
The authors of the paper, “The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love,” first published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2012, cited studies dating as far back as the 1950s.
When instant cake mixes first came to market, housewives were suspicious of the newfangled idea.
How could it be any good, they reasoned, if they didn’t need to do anything at all?
It was only when the mixes were changed to require the addition of an egg that they began to take off.
The simple act by the user, that little bit of effort, made the revised mixes a big hit.
The paper, authored by Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely, also mentions Build-A -Bear Workshop, another concept that requires consumer effort to complete the finished product.
Whether we realize it or not, the IKEA Effect is also a frequent-but-silent principle in jewelry retail.
Whenever a customer participates in anything, from a slight altering of a piece of jewelry to a full-fledged engagement ring creation, they too are underscoring the principle of the IKEA Effect.
Because they had a hand in making it, their perception of the value of the ring or piece of jewelry is elevated.
This is not a ringing (pardon the pun) endorsement for altering or creating every single thing you sell—there are few efficiencies or economies of scale in that—and it’s certainly not a call to eliminate branding from your store’s offerings.
For starters, most brands, particularly bridal companies, are excellent at facilitating tweaks and changes to suit the customer.
Some suppliers will even work with retailers to do their own version of Build-A-Bear, although I fail to see how that approach meets even the base definition of branding.
“There’s another brand that plays out in the IKEA Effect, and that is the customer’s own brand.” – Peter Smith, The Retail Smiths
Additionally, the IKEA Effect can play out with something as simple as a request to change the metal from white to yellow gold, or yellow to rose gold.
Any change at all creates a sense that the buyer has put their imprint on the piece and that, as the research shows, goes a long way toward conveying an entirely different level of ownership and pride.
There is another positive aspect to having the customer tweak their ring or jewelry before purchasing (and it’s not that it becomes un-returnable). It has to do with branding itself.
The argument that we sell either our store’s brand, or an industry or consumer brand, misses an important point. There’s another brand that plays out in the IKEA Effect, and that is the customer’s own brand.
Once they’ve put their stamp on the piece, it becomes their own creation, their own brand, and what’s not to love about that.
Now, about those Swedish meatballs …
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