Macy’s, the renowned departmental store chain, has recently unveiled a technologically advanced feature to help shoppers virtually visualise furniture options prior to purchase.
The new virtual reality experience being offered by Macy’s enables the customers of the brand to visualise a vast selection of furniture choices. Potential buyers can even view furniture items that the chain does not stock at any given time. Users can view two combined perspectives, which are a two-dimensional floor plan, and another one where the pieces of furniture can be placed in real-time, within a three-dimensional space.
Monica Choate, sales manager of Macy’s furniture department at the Wolfchase Galleria location, expressed her insights regarding the experience. She stated that the experience is designed to help customers get rid of fitting woes, as they are easily able to check out their potential buys beforehand with the virtual features. According to her, virtual reality (VR) is an avenue that achieves benchmark connections between human touch and technology.
Shoppers can use a 33 virtual headset, and start placing the furniture they intend to purchase across the virtual room setting which they themselves design by utilising an in-store tablet. To start with, the customers can input details and choose the dimensions and shapes of the rooms, for which they want to buy the products from Macy’s. After finalising the layout and dimensions of the space, the users can bring n furniture choices and place them in their intended locations.
The technology enables customers to make tweaks to the overall design to achieve their intended end-results. Then they step into the room they just created using the virtual reality headsets. Customers can walk around the furniture choices they have placed through the room, to get a sense of how the entire space feels, and how well the furniture placements such as chairs, couches, and tables sit within it.
Macy’s has already tested out the technology across several stores. It has observed that customers who were exposed to the virtual reality experience actually went ahead and purchased 60 percent more units than those customers who did not undergo the VR encounter. It came down to how the customers could visualise their own spaces with the help of VR. The Cincinnati Business Courier revealed that the return rate also dropped down to a minimal 2 percent.
The virtual reality technology was launched by Macy’s at 70 of its stores across the USA. 20 more locations were added recently, including the Wolfchase Galleria store location. The technology has been developed by Ohio firm Marxent. Macy’s also offers an augmented reality (AR) application which helps customers to view how particular furniture pieces look within their interiors, by utilising their smartphones.
Lauren Vocelle, the Manager, Media Relations, Macy’s Inc., discussed why the Wolfchase location was chosen for VR implementation. According to her, the company considers Memphis as the right type of marketplace, which has a customer pool that can open up to this new type of shopping experience.
