IKEA is a globally renowned brand that had chosen to enhance their marketing methods in the Middle Eastern region by providing the experience of an “IKEA Virtual Reality Store” at diverse pop-up shops. The prime concept of such pop-ups was to develop an interactive and engaging space amidst bustling shopping malls, thereby binging IKEA a step nearer to the patrons. Being expansive in both variety and quantity, it is not possible for IKEA’s products to be available at all places.

IKEA, known by most if not all, had decided to boost their marketing activities in the Middle East with “IKEA Virtual Reality Store” experience at Popup shops. The overall concept of these PopUps is to create a more interactive space within the busy shopping malls, bringing IKEA closer to the customer.

IKEA’s products, being so large in quantity and variety cannot be available everywhere. This is where Virtual Reality comes in. Thanks to the PopUp concept everyone had the chance to visit IKEA and see what’s available. What’s great and unheard of, is that the Virtual Reality shopping experience is a much more personalized retail experience that will change how you design your home.

Let me give you a short explanation of how it works. First, the user approaches a touchscreen where they enter their name, phone number and email, after choosing (in this case) one of the 3 pre-set living room layouts (L shaped, Square and Rectangular) that most likely match your own living space, you will be asked to wear the HTC Vive headset to start your furnishing.

Once the headset is on, you will be transported into the virtual living space chosen and will be able to choose, place, and change the design of your living room with over 1000 IKEA products from sofas to mirrors. After achieving your ideal design, you simply exit and have the list of items that you had placed with their unique code and price list for you to email or purchase on-site!

You can do everything under 20 min and if required, request to feel and see the selected samples. What’s even better is that the VR scale is 1:1, which means that all items in the virtual world are replicas in size to real life so there are no surprises after buying the item and bringing it home.

Sounds amazing right?! This is the FIRST ever Virtual Reality experience to generate revenue in a retail concept.

It doesn’t stop there, Takeleap®, introduced another VR activation to give users a full 360 virtual tour of the IKEA Kuwait store, aiding in the process of finding items around the store.

These activations, for now, may only be for the POPUP stores, but in the future, we might see these in the actual stores and that’s when we truly measure how the retail industry is transforming with the help of Virtual Reality.