Ikea’s country marketing manager Helena Gouveia, along with immersive tech company Warpin CEO Emma Ridderstad and partner director Eva Kindlundh, speaks to Retail Week about the in-store augmented-reality partnership

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Ikea and Warpin have teamed up to create an immersive AR experience for customers and families visiting the 21 stores across Sweden

Ikea and Warpin – the immersive tech company that partners with innovative brands – have created an augmented-reality experience rolled out to 21 Ikea stores in Sweden over the winter holiday in February and March in a bid to get families involved with new technologies and elevate the in-store experience.

How long did the AR project take to create?

Helena Gouveia: “From the design experience until we developed it, it took a few months. We wanted to launch it specifically when children were on school holidays and we knew that we would have more families visiting Ikea stores.”

Eva Kindlundh: “As in every design process, you think of one thing and then it transforms because you get more influence, angles and ideas. I think we started talks in the summer and once we cut it down to an exact idea, we moved fast.”

Why did Ikea decide to incorporate AR into the stores?

HG: “We are constantly exploring new ways to meet our customers – it could be through new store formats, new locations and new channels, so for us it is super important to hear more from our customers. We knew that they wanted a more entertaining experience when they shop with their kids, so we wanted to initiate an exploration and fun day out for families.

“We thought AR would be an interesting way as young people are so much more immersed in technology and want to have online and offline experiences. The idea is that there is also an essence of marine life connected with our collection so that children can be educated on sustainability issues and raise awareness.”

Would you expect this to be rolled out to global Ikea stores?

HG: “Sweden should be seen as a test lab for innovation in Ikea, so we like to test things over here and make sure it works with consumers before extending to other markets. We’re already daydreaming about what could be the next-level experience with AR with different demographics. It’s an evolution and having this integration in technology is the future of retail.

“What I saw from my colleagues and in-store sharing, there was a lot of curiosity and learning new things. We need to get feedback from the 21 stores that it was rolled out in, but from what I’ve heard it has been very positive.”

Why do you think it’s important for retailers to adopt AR?

EK: “This is just the start and AR will just be a part of the complete shopping experience that is growing quickly. It gives the consumers the chance to try out products and experience it in a whole new way, and I think for a lot of retailers that will be super important because it’s creating new revenues and limiting return rates.

“You can get people to come back to the stores and provide a more entertaining experience, add more value and add more product information in store in a smart and efficient way.”

Are consumers and retailers looking for new experiences through innovative technologies?

Emma Ridderstad: “Yes, as I think stores will have a different meaning going forward. Now we go to stores to get an experience as before we didn’t. The stores will have to reinvent themselves because people shop in different ways so connecting the digital with the physical will be very important this coming year in retail. 

“I think a lot of technologies can educate people because if you’re more immersed, you can get a fuller story, find out how the product is produced, see the factory and if you add digital twins, we may be able to see the transparency of a product. It would be great to see people not buy as many physical products so they may buy parts of their wardrobe in the digital world and this is also good for the environment.”

Have you received any feedback from retailers who have used Warpin’s technology?

ER: “Yeah, definitely. We work with different types of retailers, and we worked with H&M on AR. We had one store with these design booths where you can have an old T-shirt, upscale it by putting on an AR headset and designing the T-shirt with your headset – and that can be printed on site.

“It provides new data too because when you’re printing out the T-shirts it’s great to have many people designing different ones to see what works, what people choose, and we can use this data from this experience to see what T-shirts will sell. We will see much more of this where people are part of creating what they wear or design.”