After wandering through dozens of local furniture stores for days, searching for the couch of your dreams, you finally see it online. You start convincing your partner, while trimming your cat’s nails, that you two are a match made in heaven (talking about the couch, of course). Then it’s just one big blur: the “Purchase” button, the doorbell, and finally, the couch… sent back because it just didn’t look like the photo at all. Sounds familiar? Fortunately, with modern AR furniture shopping apps, this will no longer be a problem.
Why do the best apps to buy furniture online use AR? Because it saves both time and money, while giving you a broader range of products to choose from. Believe it or not, AR causes a 19% spike in customer engagement, with a 90% higher conversion rate. Almost half of consumers want to see more AR tools while shopping. No wonder that in 2021, 90.9 million Americans will use AR at least once a month.
In this article, we’ve selected the ten most popular shopping apps for buying furniture so that you won’t have to cry over a mismatched ottoman ever again.
Available on iOS and Android devices
When it comes to furniture shopping apps, IKEA Place is the one most people think of instantly. That’s because the Swedish retailer was one of the first to ride the AR wave.
All you need to do is scan your room, or an empty area on the floor, and the app will show you what furniture will fit best in your space. If you want, you can try more products and check how they all look together. The cherry on the cake is the visual search, one of the hottest e-commerce technologies to date. Thanks to this functionality, you can find furniture similar to what you already have in your room.
Get your juices flowing! With IKEA Place, you can even redecorate a subway platform.
Available on iOS and Android devices
With the “View in Your Room” option, Amazon users can place the selected product on the floor or table to see if it fits the surroundings. Their new “Room Decorator” option allows users to visualize several products at a time. And Amazon goes even further, allowing users to save AR snapshots of their rooms for later.
Available on iOS and Android devices
Just like IKEA, Wayfair was one of the pioneers of AR furniture shopping apps. They improve the shopping experience with some extra features like body and environmental occlusions (allowing people and objects to appear in front of AR items), real-time lighting, and more.
Virtual objects cast shadows and naturally blend into surroundings; you can even place a table between chairs, for example. What’s more, users can stand or walk near virtual objects just like they exist in real life. The Wayfair app supports multiple planes, so users can place objects on the ceiling, walls, tables, or floor.
Available on iOS and Android devices
Yes, the retail giant that sells everything from groceries to electronics didn’t miss out on the AR opportunity either. Target’s mobile app’s AR feature “See It in Your Space” allows users to visualize products in 3D and, just like in other apps, you can move items around or change their colors.
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Available on iOS and Android devices
The next big name on our list is The Home Depot, a store with a wide array of home improvement supplies and products. And they’ve also jumped on the AR train just in time.
By tapping the “See It in Your Home” button under the product’s photo, you can view its 3D model in your room. With the app, you can visualize furniture, refrigerators, chandeliers, and even vases. In 2019, the application took first place in the Forrester Retail Wave.
Available on iOS and Android devices
Overstock is a large retailer of home goods, furniture, décor, and more. The company was one of the first adopters of visual search integration on Android, and what’s more, their app was named the best retail mobile app for seven consecutive years. Along with 3D visualization, their app allows users to find products similar to the pictures they upload.
Available on iOS and Android devices
Houzz is another example of a home improvement and furniture store that invested in AR. Using this app, people can see 3D images of furniture in their actual homes by clicking the “View in My Room” button. They can also change lighting or cover the floor in virtual tile to see how it will look in real life. How cool is that?
Available on iOS devices
Anthropologie offers a collection of women’s clothing, accessories, and home dĂ©cor. You can fully customize some of their furniture products by choosing the style, fabric, color, or shape. After you’re done, click the “Preview in a Room” button to see how the item goes with your room. The app doesn’t offer many products for visualization – yet, but it makes the shopping experience so much more enjoyable.
Available on iOS devices
Hosts of a popular TV show, Joanna and Chip Gaines, founded their brand Magnolia Market in Texas in 2014. In 2017, they teamed up with Spotify and created an AR furniture shopping app for their store. Though the range of products available for visualization isn’t broad, the app gives an “in-store experience” for the customers who can’t visit their store in person.
Available on iOS devices
Unlike all other AR apps on our list, this app was created for professional designers. It allows them to transform images into 3D scenes, save and share designs with clients, and view furniture and décor in AR. And thanks to direct linking, their clients can easily purchase the items used in projects at Amazon or Wayfair.
Choosing the right furniture for your home isn’t a piece of cake. But thanks to augmented reality, we can finally put away our crystal balls. AR takes the guesswork out of shopping and makes the process even more enjoyable.
The best apps to buy furniture use AR to help their customers make more informed decisions about products they like. That’s why we at Postindustria believe the future of furniture shopping apps belongs to AR. What do you think? If you want to learn more, check out our post about how furniture and design sales benefit from AR. It’s just as informative as it is amusing.
