AR Helps Ikea Transform Furniture Buying Experience

Ikea is a Swedish furniture maker that is known for its modular offerings. It also offers furniture customize option to buyers. A company founded in 1951, Ikea today has 355 stores in 29 countries across the world. It employs 1,49,000 people and has had 2.1 billion online visits.

Ikea is big on technology usage to enhance customer experience. One of its popular technology-based solutions is Kitchen Planner. Kitchen Planner allows users to virtually recreate spaces they require furniture for. Users can then place different furniture products in the recreated space and even customize it to their liking.

However, recreating a space virtually is not the same as being in the room. Ikea realised this and created an augmented reality (AR) app for its customers. This app is called Ikea Place and is based on iOS’ ARKit AR platform. ARKit debuted with the launch of iOS 11 for Apple smartphones. It brings AR capabilities to Apple smartphones, starting from iPhone SE/iPhone 6S. On the tablet front, the ARKit support starts onward from 2017 edition of 9.7-inch iPad. With this app, Ikea is trying to take the Kitchen Planner to customers’ smartphones.

Ikea Place allows users to see how a furniture item sits in a real space. Users can see how a sofa will look like in their living room. The user needs to fire up the Ikea Place app on his phone, point its camera at his living room and choose a sofa to place. When placing the sofa, the user can even tweak its position and orientation in the room. The best part about Ikea Place is its paltry list of requirements – an iOS smartphone with ARKit support and a space of user’s choosing.

Ikea promises to offer 98 percent accuracy in displaying 3D furniture item on the app. Users can also look at a furniture item from various angles, like underneath tables and chairs. Ikea to aims bring people to its stores with the help of this app. Since Ikea makes products that users can assemble themselves, the app also gives them idea about how much space an item will take in a space. This helps the user buy the right furniture for his needs while considering the available space.

With Ikea Place, Ikea has cemented its position as a leader in the furniture business. In the process, it has cemented its position as a technology-driven company for the millennials. However, AR is just one technology. There are more such technologies like Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things that can help an enterprise transform and enhance its position in a business sector.

Your enterprise stands to benefit from new technology, just like Ikea. All you need to do is get in touch with us today on contact@audaxlabs.com. Our expertise and experience working on technologies like AR, VR AI and IoT will help your business achieve massive growth. Get in touch with us today to help your business grow by leaps and bounds.

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