Is Augmented Reality the crown jewel of dutch-swedish retailer ikea's digital transformation

Talks about Augmented Reality, Retail, Ecommerce, Sales, MAYA Augmented Reality, Revenue

Traditional retailers are reluctant about investing in augmented reality as a technology that could propel sales. AR is considered as novel tech, however the impact on sales is uncertain. This attitude of the retailers seems to be changing with consumer habits. So lets examine some data

As per a HBR (Harvard Business Review) study which analyzed a large dataset of 160,000 customers over 800,000 mobile sessions over a 19 month period. Customers who used Augmented Reality spent 21% more time on the product page. They also viewed/sampled 28% more products and were 20% more likely to make a purchase. The HBR study provided some evidence that AR could help businesses increase revenue. Although, the HBR study did not mention specific revenue/sales figures.

Now, coming back to IKEA.

In 2017, when Apple launched ARKit in iOS 11, they partnered with the dutch swedish retailer IKEA to showcase the technology. IKEA Place created an incredible marketing buzz, with people placing furniture on streets, bus-stops and trains and sharing it with friends. The IKEA place app has registered more than 31 million downloads.

But what were the outcomes for IKEA business ?

IKEA e-commerce net sales grew from $1.985 billion to $11.231 billion in 2021. An almost 500% jump in revenues. IKEA's online sales are now 26% of overall retail sales. The results are indicative that the digital strategy adopted by IKEA with Augmented Reality at the forefront did payoff even for a category like furniture. Perhaps, this is the reason for IKEA to double down on its AR investment

One of the limitations of IKEA place is disconnectivity between trying out the furniture and making a purchase.

How did MAYA do this differently for the above limitation

At MAYA, we made this seamless to move between Augmented Reality immersive experience and the product/catalogue enabling a better customer experience and easy shopping. At the same time being 15X faster ( translated to 15X better customer experience ) than available on the Amazon app