Why Augmented Reality Is The Future Of Furniture Marketing

What a lot of furniture manufacturers and retailers don’t know is that the future of furniture marketing is already here. Right now, Augmented Reality (AR) is changing the way consumers engage with furniture brands. In fact, thanks to tech-savvy furniture companies, they’re already familiar with using it in stores and at home.

What a lot of furniture manufacturers and retailers don’t know is that the future of furniture marketing is already here. Right now, Augmented Reality (AR) is changing the way consumers engage with furniture brands. In fact, thanks to tech-savvy furniture companies, they’re already familiar with using it in stores and at home.

However, one of the biggest barriers for people seeking a new furniture product for their home is how it will look in context. They can see the furniture item, and they can see their home. But they can’t see the two together until the product arrives. AR changes that. Here’s how.

Augmented Reality: The Ideal Marketing Tool

How many times have you shopped for a product for your home and thought: I like the product, but how will it look in my home? It’s guess work. No one really knows. But for larger pieces of furniture and big ticket items, getting them home – only to have to send them back again – is a hassle most people could do without.

Many companies already use 3D models of their products to show customers what different variations will look like. So the next logical step is to provide customers with a tool for placing those 3D models in the context of their home, so they can be sure it fits in terms of size, color and style. This enables customers to get as close as possible to the product without making a purchase. They can even use specially created AR filters on Instagram to quickly play around with a particular furniture item in their home.

For manufacturers, it’s also a great way to get furniture dealers engaged with the product line, offering AR as a service to help improve customer awareness of what’s available and how it would look in their home.

Helping a customer overcome their doubts about how an item will look naturally leads to increased buyer confidence and ultimately more conversions.

In fact, research in the US reveals that 60% of consumers want to use AR to shop for furniture.

Augmented Reality plays a crucial role in 3D commerce. Learn more about it in our guide to 3D commerce.

What AR Can And Can’t Do Today

AR for furniture companies is a fast-moving technology, so it’s important to understand where it is right now.

At the moment, AR involves taking a phone from your pocket and interacting with a 3D model of an item, overlaid on your immediate surroundings. It’s a great tool for marketing and selling smaller furniture items – really anything up to a 2-seater sofa. Beyond that, the technology is limited by screen size. Imagine taking a photograph of a sofa in situ, in full. It’s surprisingly difficult to do! AR has the same challenge.

AR also relies on taking measurements of surfaces within a space. So let’s say you’re looking at a double bed. If there’s already a bed in the spot where the new one will go, it’s not possible to overlay the 3D model over the existing one – it will stack the model on top!

However, the technology is quickly gaining momentum and more widespread adoption. The big techs such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft have platforms in the pipeline that facilitate either AR, virtual reality (VR), or mixed reality (MR) – a combination of both. The message to furniture companies is clear: onboard now to become AR-ready.

Where Augmented Reality Will Go Next

What’s coming up will go beyond the small screen. Smart glasses will enable consumers to visualize 3D models of products in AR in a fully-immersive environment.

With larger screen real-estate to play around with, the future looks set for users to be able to visualize multiple products at once – perhaps a table and chairs or even a full living room of furniture. Imagine buying a new house and being able to test out and walk through decoration ideas room by room using AR and 3D models.

WebAR is already possible with Android and Apple devices. Not only does it enable AR functionality outside an app, it opens the door to having configurable 3D models in an AR environment via a website. This breakthrough technique, which is already possible on Android, enables customers to change the configuration of a product within an AR environment. Soon, customers will be able to cycle through options – such as colors and materials – whilst viewing the 3D model in a real world context.

Optimizing Value From 3D Models

For furniture companies who have already invested in 3D models of their products, and who perhaps already offer their customers and salespeople 3D configuration tools, the step up to AR is an obvious one.

It takes customers from the position of being able to visualize configured products to seeing those products in a real-world context. It’s also something they can do at home — providing that much-needed buyer confidence, and decreasing return rates because they know what they’re getting and it corresponds to expectations.

Bring your 3D models to life using iONE360’s augmented reality for furniture.

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