How IKEA is using Augmented Reality
IKEA is a Swedish-origin Dutch-headquartered multinational conglomerate that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, among other goods and home services. Founded in Sweden in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been the world’s largest furniture retailer since 2008.
IKEA is worldwide known for “Assemble & Install-It-Yourself”. However, in September 2017 IKEA launched an augmented reality app, namely, IKEA Place, that aims to solve practical problems surrounding furniture shopping. With the aid of the freely downloadable app, customers would be allowed to try out furniture in their homes before buying it. The app uses AR to allow its users to visualize how furniture will look in their own homes. Not only would it take the hassle of furniture shopping off, but it would also eliminate the burden of returning any furniture that does not fit. With this free app, IKEA creates a service-centered value as it signals that it understands the hurdles involved in the furniture shopping process and extends support.
IKEA Place App provides means to customers not only to decide which furniture to buy but saves them from undesirable unfit results. For this aim, the app enables furniture shoppers to virtually furnish their rooms with some 2,000 objects and accessories available from the IKEA catalog. The app automatically scales the chosen product to the size based on the shopper’s room’s dimensions with 98 percent accuracy. Furthermore, the ability to see the texture of the fabric and the rendering of light and shadows is among the features, too. Moreover, IKEA Place aimed to turn the experience of choosing an item of furniture into a rather fun digital engagement as well.
Ikea has struggled with e-commerce sales partially because of its slow adoption of digital. However, the IKEA augmented reality application is a great strategy to improve user experience and increase sales. For example, allowing people to see what a product would look like in their house without embarking on a three-hour Ikea trip could help the company with online sales. Moreover, IKEA uses inspiring new technology like ARKit to make IKEA home furnishing knowledge accessible for everyone, creating a better everyday life for many people.
Furthermore, AR could benefit IKEA as: firstly, it aims to close the present omnichannel gap by the blend of digital and real worlds at the touch of a smartphone. Secondly, it provides opportunities for improving the stressful in-store shopping experience. For example, it helps the user short-list favorite items following the virtual fit experimentation with virtual furniture replicas before stepping into the enormous showrooms with numerous alternatives in the display. Finally, it aims at reducing the returns and the involved hassle, thus improving sales, increasing brand loyalty, and restoring customers’ trust in the brand.
