Last year there was its Snapchat integration, a printed catalogue with digital connectivity, its flagship ‘Amazon 4-Star’ store in New York City, and the list goes on. This year is also shaping up to be a big year for the online juggernaut, as it unveils ‘Amazon Showroom’.
In mid-2018, as part of its bid to compete with Amazon’s majority share of the US e-commerce market, Walmart introduced its augmented reality feature – 3D virtual shopping. The tour-like website feature allowed the business to showcase nearly 70 items from both national and private label listings in a 3D apartment setting. Other retailers, like Ikea and Wayfair, have also used augmented reality to enhance their online shopping experiences.
Amazon, not one to sit back and let other companies hone in on its position as a market innovator, has gone one step further with its showroom shopping functionality. Rather than simply viewing curated items in a 3D, interactive setting, Amazon is now giving shoppers the ability to design their own unique space with products available from its online platform.
Amazon is trialling a new interactive AR tool for its furniture and decor shopping categories.
With the ability to customise everything from the furniture and décor to the wall colour and floor finishes, consumers are presented with a unique opportunity to customise their product selections in a more visual shopping format.
“Amazon Showroom presents customers with a virtual living room, where they can customize the décor and furniture selection providing the ability to visually compare to scale representations of furniture items together in a room to determine how an item will fit with the style of a room and work with other complementary pieces. The result is a photorealistic rendering of a room that answers the question: ‘How will this all look together?’” an Amazon spokesperson told CNET.
Amazon Showroom lets customers design and purchase their dream living room arrangement.
According to the online business, Amazon Showroom is being tested on Amazon.com and the Amazon App and is currently limited to home furnishings for the living room.
This isn’t the first time Amazon has dabbled in AR, with the business also offering ‘AR View’, which was originally launched in late 2017, giving customers the ability to see what products will look like in their homes before buying them. The highly visual shopping feature is not dissimilar to what Target in the US did over the festive season, with its AR in-app feature that allowed shoppers to insert Christmas trees into their own space before deciding which tree to purchase.
Never miss our best stories. Sign up for Power Retail’s free weekly newsletter and find our daily stories on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.