The IKEA Effect

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There’s something oddly satisfying about assembling flat-pack furniture. Not the fiddly screws or missing dowels, but the sense of pride that comes with standing back and admiring a bookcase you’ve manhandled into existence. Even if it wobbles slightly. Even if it took twice as long as it should have. You built it — and because you built it, you’re strangely fond of it.

This is the IKEA Effect. A cognitive bias that leads people to place disproportionately high value on things they’ve had a hand in creating. And while it was coined in the consumer world (and popularised by Dan Ariely and his behavioural economics colleagues), its fingerprints are all over modern B2B buying. Especially now, when consensus selling, co-creation, and customisation have become the norm. The question for sales teams is: are you leveraging it — or ignoring it?

Ownership Makes Us Irrational — But Predictably So

The IKEA Effect isn’t just about furniture. In controlled studies, people have been shown to overvalue everything from origami cranes to basic Lego models, purely because they made them themselves. In one MIT experiment, participants were willing to pay 63% more for a self-assembled item than for an identical, pre-assembled one.

The psychological mechanism at play is a blend of effort justification and the endowment effect. In essence: when we’ve invested effort, we convince ourselves the outcome is better. And once we feel ownership, we resist letting it go — or admitting its flaws.

This isn’t some quirky behavioural outlier. It’s deeply rooted in how we assign value. And in enterprise buying, where the process is long, complex, and full of stakeholder involvement, it’s happening more often than we realise.

In Complex Buying Cycles, Buyers Build Their Own Beliefs

Modern B2B buying isn’t a clean handoff between buyer and seller. It’s a crowded committee meeting where no one agrees on what problem they’re solving, let alone how to solve it. Research from Forrester shows that 63% of B2B purchases now involve more than four people — but that number only tells part of the story. The real issue is fragmentation. Each stakeholder is arriving with their own priorities, their own KPIs, and their own version of reality.

In this mess of misaligned agendas, something interesting happens: buyers start building their own narrative. They shape their understanding of the problem. They tinker with potential solutions. They workshop ideas internally, long before they speak to a salesperson. And when they do eventually engage, they don’t want to be told — they want to collaborate.

This is where the IKEA Effect quietly sneaks in. The more input they have, the more convinced they become. The more energy they invest, the more emotionally anchored they are. The idea isn’t to sell to them, but to build with them — because what we build, we value. Even if it’s slightly crooked.

Co-Creation Isn’t a Gimmick. It’s a Sales Strategy.

Co-creation in sales is often misunderstood. It gets lumped in with brainstorm sessions, post-it notes, and vague talk of “partnership.” But in the hands of a skilled seller, co-creation isn’t decoration. It’s a deliberate act of engineering ownership — a psychological judo move that turns cautious buyers into committed stakeholders.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about endlessly “workshopping” a solution to keep the client sweet. Co-creation is about giving the right people the right input at the right time — and doing it strategically. Done well, it taps into two of the buyer’s most powerful internal drivers: control and contribution. Control over what’s being proposed. Contribution to something that might get built. These are not soft, fluffy intangibles. They’re concrete levers of influence.

When you ask a buyer to shape the implementation plan, prioritise the roadmap, tweak the pricing structure, or even choose which internal metrics matter — you’re inviting them into the architecture of the solution. Not as a spectator, but as a builder. And the moment someone starts building, they start to believe.

This is why the most successful enterprise sellers operate more like facilitators than presenters. They don’t arrive with a shiny proposal wrapped in a bow. They arrive with scaffolding — a structure that’s half-built, waiting to be shaped. They guide the buyer through decision points. They ask strategic questions that surface trade-offs. And they make the buyer’s input feel not just welcome, but necessary.

This isn’t about manipulating people into saying yes. It’s about making sure the eventual yes actually means something. Because when a buyer feels that the final solution is theirs — not yours — the probability of deal momentum skyrockets. You’re no longer pushing against resistance. You’re helping them carry something they’ve already decided to lift.

There’s also a practical side to all this. Buyers are more risk-averse than ever. A report by Challenger in 2023 found that 77% of B2B buyers describe the last significant purchase they made as “very complex or difficult.” That figure isn’t likely to shrink. Risk isn’t just a barrier to purchase — it’s a reason for inertia. And nothing de-risks a decision like having built the thing yourself.

When buyers help shape a solution, they trust it more. They’ve already stress-tested it mentally. They’ve reconciled the trade-offs. They’ve had their say. Which means they’re far more likely to get it over the line internally, because they don’t feel like they’re carrying someone else’s plan — they’re advancing their own.

And from a sales perspective, this unlocks all sorts of downstream benefits. Stakeholder engagement improves. Objection handling gets easier. Competitive threats diminish. Your champion doesn’t just support your solution — they’re now emotionally tethered to it. And if you’ve played it right, so are their colleagues in procurement, ops, or IT, because you’ve engaged them early enough to matter.

The irony, of course, is that many sales teams still see co-creation as a late-stage luxury. Something to trot out after the deal is done. “We’ll customise post-signature.” By then, it’s too late. The IKEA Effect doesn’t work retroactively. Once the value’s already been calculated — once procurement’s involved and legal’s circling — there’s no psychological gain left to be had. Co-creation must start while value is still being formed.

That’s the inflection point. When the buyer isn’t just evaluating your product — they’re shaping how it fits. And that’s when you move from selling something to them, to building something with them. Once that shift happens, price comparisons, feature checklists, and competitive noise start to fade. What matters is momentum. Shared progress. And the satisfaction of having built something worth believing in.

When Buyers Build the Solution, They Defend It

One of the strangest side-effects of the IKEA Effect is how it turns people into advocates. In the original studies, participants didn’t just value their self-made products more. They also defended them more vigorously. Even when others pointed out flaws. Even when objectively better alternatives were available.

We see the same thing in B2B. Champions who’ve been involved in shaping a solution are far more likely to defend it internally. To overcome objections. To push back against sceptics. They’ve staked their credibility on it, and that investment changes how they behave.

This is particularly useful in multi-threaded deals. When you’ve engaged multiple stakeholders in the build — legal, ops, IT, finance — you’re not just reducing risk. You’re turning potential blockers into contributors. And because they’ve contributed, they’re now emotionally and politically tied to the outcome.

It also helps post-sale. Clients who feel like co-creators are more likely to forgive teething issues, stay through onboarding hiccups, and renew long-term. Because they don’t feel like they’ve been sold something. They feel like they chose it. And psychologically, that’s a world of difference.

But Beware: Over-Investment Can Backfire

As with any cognitive bias, the IKEA Effect has a dark side. If you overplay it — if you ask too much of the buyer, demand too much effort, or turn co-creation into a burdensome process — the effect can reverse. The perceived value can drop. Fatigue can set in.

This is especially true in today’s buying environment, where decision fatigue and risk aversion are already high. According to a 2023 Forrester study, 61% of B2B buyers say their purchasing processes are “increasingly overwhelming.” Asking them to do even more work, under the guise of collaboration, can feel manipulative or self-serving.

The trick is in the calibration. Give buyers meaningful input, but make the process feel lightweight. Focus on strategic decisions — not admin. Make sure the involvement feels empowering, not exhausting.

Done well, it creates what behavioural scientists call “justifiable effort”: enough investment to build pride, not enough to cause resentment.

At Flow State Sales, we help sales teams harness behavioural science like the IKEA Effect to close more deals and build deeper buyer engagement. We train teams globally to co-create with confidence, sell with psychology, and turn buyers into advocates.

Want to know how we can help your team build solutions your buyers won’t want to walk away from? Get in touch.