lkea store app

Take a Successful Selling Idea from IKEA Catalogue App

The app became the “First Augmented Reality App” in the Retail Industry to be launched in 60+ markets simultaneously

Every business is becoming a digital business because every customer is now a digital customer. In response to the rise of the digital customer, retailers are leveraging digital technologies to reach new levels of customer engagement and competitive advantage. IKEA has taken its stand on the grounds of one of the promising areas of digital technology which is, Augmented Reality and continues to reap its benefits whilst maintaining a strong stance.

IKEA, the name must ring some bells as it is the world’s largest furniture retailer and has been for a quiet a while now. Founded back in 1943 by the 17 year old Ingvar Kampard, the name is an acronym for “Ingvar Kampard, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd”, Elmtaryd being the farm he grew up in and Agunnaryd being his hometown in Sweden. It has come a long way from then and has now penetrated deep into the sea of technological innovation to keep itself ahead of the race, and it has been successful so far.

But as digitization became a more dominant aspect of the retail market, they realized the need of the hour and took to making their catalogue even more inspiring and relevant making use of digital technology. They made use of “Augmented Reality” to deliver their content more effectively and thereby engaging their tech savvy consumers unconventionally.

Place and See IKEA furniture virtually in your home

The IKEA app allow users to virtually view catalogue furniture from the comfort of their homes with a complete sense of confidence that the furniture would suit perfectly.

The process of the working of the app includes:

• Aligning the device’s camera over the marker printed on selective pages of the catalogue.
• Viewing additional product information including a virtual preview of the product on the respective page.
• Displaying the furniture in the room with or without using the catalogue as an anchor.
• Allowing the users to move the furniture accordingly.

The print catalogue is an integral part of the app. Placing the print catalogue where the furniture is to be envisioned allows the app to correctly size and place the furniture accordingly. Although this can be done without the print catalogue too, the print gauges the correct scale for the products thereby freeing the users from the hassles of rescaling the product by themselves.

IKEA had found in a Research:
14% of their customers bought the wrong sized furniture.
Over 70% of their customers didn’t know how big their homes were.

And it was in response to this research that they launched Virtual Catalogue Furniture App to provide an effective solution for this issue.

The app was very well received as can be seen from the exponential increase in the number of downloads in a year:

Following the app’s response, Accenture, after organizing an Augmented Reality Survey in 2014, came out with the result that the likelihood of a customer purchasing a product in the following augmented reality use cases increases by:

“86%” is too significant a figure to be ignored by any business in the world. IKEA probably had a good idea about the consumer’s rise confidence in purchasing the product after a thorough virtual preview which is probably what drove them to take such a step.

They, however, with all their risks and stakes left us with one great lesson to take away from them which is–To create a successful app, create a useful one. An app with a purpose and a pleasant user experience is what will engage the people and instead of you having to call out to your customers, it will draw them to you.