John Lewis & Partners to trial virtual reality experience to enable customers to visualise new products in their homes before they buy
Thursday 6 June 2019
To help customers with what is often the hardest part of shopping for new home products, deciding what they will look like in your room, John Lewis & Partners is to trial a new virtual reality experience called ‘Visualise Your Space’.
Guided by John Lewis Partners in three trial shops, customers will be able to put the dimensions, doors and windows of the room they want to update into an iPad via an app, and then drop in John Lewis products to see how their interior ideas would look in their home. They will also be able to change the colour of the walls and floors to create a complete look.
Users will be able to view their designed room on either an iPad, as a 3D room set in augmented reality, or wear a virtual reality headset to ‘walk around’ the room. Afterwards customers will be emailed a copy of the room they created with shoppable links.
Caitlin Price, John Lewis Partner and Head of Buying for Furniture and Flooring said; “Designing a new look for a room can be a lot of fun and a chance to express our personalities. However, customers tell us that uncertainty about what new products will look like in their home can make the decision making hard, and in many cases people revert to the safer tones of grey or beige furnishings.
“This new technology will enable customers to be braver in their choices, and test technology that architects and interior designers have been using to visualise their designs.”
The technology has been developed by the US based, design and 3D visualisation company Marxent. CEO and Co-Founder of Marxent, Beck Besecker said; “John Lewis understands how important inspiration is to modern furniture shoppers and has an impressive history of innovation. We’re proud to be partnering with them to test this technology in the UK.”
The trial will begin at John Lewis & Partners’ Kingston shop on 26 June, in Cambridge on 28 June, and in Horsham on 2 July.
NOTES TO EDITORS
John Lewis & Partners
John Lewis & Partners operates 51 shops across the UK (37 department stores, 12 John Lewis at home and shops at St Pancras International and Heathrow Terminal 2) as well as johnlewis.com. In the changing world of retail, John Lewis is focused on competing through differentiation and innovation in three key areas - unique own brand and exclusive products that customers cannot buy anywhere else, exceptional Partner-centric service and experiences, and its expanding range of financial and home services that wrap around everything it sells. John Lewis won Best Retailer, Best Electricals Retailer, Best Homewares Retailer and Best Furniture Retailer at the GlobalData Customer Satisfaction Awards 2019, and its Westfield White City shop won Best New Store at the Retail Week Awards 2019.
For news and updates from the John Lewis & Partners PR team, follow @johnlewisandpartnerspr
https://www.johnlewispresscentre.com/
You can follow John Lewis on the following social media channels:
https://jland.partners/Twitter
https://jland.partners/Instagram