Ikea lures customers

New competitive prices and home furnishing on cell phones

Customers can use the new app to mark, delete and replace furniture in their rooms at will.(Bild: Martin Jöchl)

The furniture trade is hotly contested in Austria. To win over customers, Swedish furniture retailer Ikea is lowering its prices by up to 15 percent and is launching a new, free 3D room planner to make it easier to decorate your own four walls.

The domestic furniture trade is feeling the effects of Austrians' desire to save. While a lot was spent on furnishings during the pandemic, consumers are now putting the brakes on. They are thinking very carefully before making a new investment. The Swedes are cutting the prices of thousands of products to gain an edge over the competition. Austrians will save up to 15 percent. The concrete figures will be presented next week.

But it's not just about money for customers. According to the Life at Home Report 2023, 87% of Ikea shoppers say that they want to feel comfortable in their home, but need support in visualizing and realizing their home dreams. When buying online in particular, they are often unsure whether their desired products will fit into their living room or with their existing furniture, for example. That's why Ikea now wants to score points with a new, free 3D room planner in the Ikea app, which uses artificial intelligence to help users capture and design their own living spaces. Products are "erased" and replaced with new ones. "Initially, the program is available for bedrooms, living rooms, studies and dining rooms," reports Claudio Winkler, Country Digital & Business Development Manager IKEA Austria. Further applications will follow.

How the app works
The individual design of living spaces is a central aspect of "Ikea Kreativ". A wide-angle picture of the room is taken with the smartphone and saved in the Ikea profile. The "furniture eraser" function allows you to empty the entire room or digitally remove certain objects, such as an old couch or shelf. You can then select new Ikea products and place them in the virtual living space. These are displayed true to scale and adapt realistically to the lighting in the room. If you don't have a cell phone to hand, don't want to scan your home or only want to work on the computer, you can set up interactive 3D showrooms. More than 50 are available. Interested parties can then insert, move, rotate, hang up or remove products as they wish. Ikea plans to continuously expand the selection of showrooms.

Ikea expert Claudio Winkler: "Another important building block for Ikea as an omnichannel retailer".(Bild: Martin Jöchl)

The designs can then be shared with family and friends or published on social media platforms. Anyone who wants to implement the room design can then add individual products or the entire room furnishings to the shopping cart and order online. Another option is to add the items to your shopping list and test or view them in real life the next time you visit a furniture store "The tool is another important building block for Ikea as an omnichannel retailer. This patented technology can be used to further simplify the shopping experience," says Winkler. Ikea Kreativ was launched in the United States in 2023 and is already being used in eleven other countries.

The Swedish furniture store generates sales of around one billion euros in this country and has a market share of around 13.3 percent. Consumers can choose between eight locations throughout the country. In addition, there are six smaller planning studios with around 200 square meters where kitchens or cabinets are put together by experts. Another studio will open in the Auhof Center in the west of Vienna on April 7.