Ikea to offer 3D web planning store

Written on 29th July 2008                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent

I used to live on a brand new student-campus, a location with about 1000 similar apartments. I noticed two things. First: Tech students took the liberty to measure the room and uploaded their plans to a local internet. Second: all students bought their furniture at Ikea, with the information that was gathered before. At the time, we used to joke about the dependancy, but who would have thought of selling that idea to Ikea?

Today, Ikea announced that they will offer a three dimensional web planning service, offering space customization with Ikea products. Ikea customers will be able to change the room settings and products, including color and size. The company has introduced the service as part of a strategy to improve the online shopping experience. The technology is provided by 20-20, and is supposed to be very easy to use and requires little to no learning curve. 20-20 has more then 600 employees working in 13 countries, CEO of 20-20, Jean-Francois Grou said:

“20-20’s Virtual Planner will give IKEA customers the power to create and visualize spaces in a fully interactive 3D setting, putting them in the decorator’s seat”

The value of the signed contract is unknown.

The 3D drawing technology would facilitate a lot of people that want to decorate their own house, but are not acquainted with modeling a room with a pencil or a mouse. They just have to live with the fact that everyone else owns the same products.