Service Design
Retail
2025
About The Project
IKEA has long been recognized for its design philosophy and customer-centric approach, but the in-store checkout experience often stood in contrast to the brand’s promise of efficiency. Across many locations, customers voiced frustrations with long lines, confusing self-checkout systems, and the physical effort of scanning every item. What should have been the last simple step of the journey often became the most stressful, leaving people with a memory of waiting and friction rather than ease and inspiration.
The Challenge
Checkout was consistently one of the most painful moments of the IKEA experience. Traditional checkout could last six minutes or longer, especially for customers with larger baskets or during peak hours. Scan & Go, although up to 65 percent faster, struggled to gain adoption and remained at around 10 to 20 percent usage. Customers described scanning as tedious and even as a skill they had to learn. Workers confirmed this, noting that many shoppers struggled to find barcodes, scan items, and confirm them on screens. Staff often had to intervene to complete the process for customers. Instead of ending on a high note, customers left with an impression of inefficiency and stress.
Research and Process
To investigate this challenge, we conducted field observations and interviews with customers and staff in different store formats. Many shoppers said that scanning felt like unpaid labor. They disliked logging into the app, holding the device, and scanning each item during the visit. Others preferred the idea of scanning everything at once rather than continuously. Staff echoed these pain points and admitted that scanning created unnecessary dependency on their help.
By mapping the journey, we identified checkout as a bottleneck that shaped the memory of the entire shopping trip. If IKEA could redesign this step, it would not only improve efficiency but also protect the reputation of the brand. Our process included analyzing adoption data, benchmarking time spent at checkout, and co-creating prototypes with staff and customers to test alternative flows.
SYNKA Back-End Operational Flow
The Solution
Proposed Impact
We proposed SYNKA, a scanless checkout experience powered by RFID technology. Instead of manually scanning barcodes, customers would place items in their carts and pass through RFID-enabled gates. Each gate would detect products automatically and assign a payment kiosk for review. The process would integrate with the IKEA Family app, syncing purchases and loyalty rewards. For bulky items, RFID product cards would be issued and encoded by staff, ensuring that the entire range of inventory could be covered.
The new flow was designed to remove cognitive load and eliminate queues. Rather than juggling scan guns or apps, customers would simply walk through the gate, confirm their purchases at a kiosk, and complete payment in seconds. Staff would retain oversight and control of RFID encoding, ensuring accuracy and reducing their need to step in during customer checkout.
SYNKA RFID Entry Gates
SYNKA Payment Kiosks
Key Learning
This project reinforced that small inefficiencies can carry outsized emotional weight. A beautiful showroom and inspiring shopping journey can be undone in minutes by a frustrating checkout. By reimagining this step, we not only addressed a logistical challenge but also protected IKEA’s brand promise. SYNKA demonstrated how technology, when designed around human behavior, could transform routine moments into a positive reflection of a company’s values.
SYNKA Exit Gates
Based on benchmarks and projected adoption, SYNKA had the potential to cut checkout time by more than half compared to traditional methods. With barriers removed, the system could achieve stronger adoption than Scan & Go. For customers like Luisa, the target persona, the experience would shift from a chaotic and stressful finale to a smooth conclusion. Instead of associating IKEA with lines, she would leave remembering its design, efficiency, and modernity.