IKEA to roll out new app, allowing customers to make online purchases
There's finally an app for that.
IKEA will launch a new mobile app that will allow customers to purchase products without having to go to a retail location, mirroring a capability already available via the retail giant's desktop website.
The furniture retailer said the move illustrated its business model shift from brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping.
"It is a completely new experience," Barbara Martin Coppola, IKEA's chief digital officer, told Reuters. "The app is combined with the store experience, with the online experience."
The new app will first roll out in France and the Netherlands before expanding to the company's top markets, including China, Germany and the United States by the end of the year.
Currently, the app offers an augmented reality experience where customers can visualize how furniture and other products would look inside their homes. However, customers can only add items to a shopping list for a store visit -- not purchase the products outright.
The new app will marry visual and retail functions.
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In addition, customers who visit a retail location will be able to point their phone's camera at furniture to see other available colors and textures and how it would fit in a room with similar products.