
IKEA
Devising a new shopping experience for IKEA's customers with smart technologies.
Overview
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Time
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Oct 2019​
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Individual University project for "Business Creativity & Innovation"
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Tools​​
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Adobe XD​
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Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Publisher)
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State of Business
A thriving market for home furnishing worldwide
Intensified competition
Experience > Product
Reliance on big-box retail
Time-consuming & confusing
shopping journey
Proposed Upgrades
Smart IoT IKEA Stores
Store-specific, cloud-based IKEA Portal
Smart on-site warehouse
VR Adoption
Home Arrangement & Customzation
Furniture Designer



An illustration of how IKEA Portals would provide shopping guidance and synchronise data across devices in-store using cloud-computing.
Expected Outcome
Cost-effectiveness
Less time-consuming
customer journey
Convenience &
personalization
Read the Complete Report
Notes
This was an individual case assignment and I immediately chose IKEA for the assignment, not only because I am a big fan of IKEA furniture (and meatballs), but also my personal opinion on how IKEA forces visitors to go through the stores entirely, i.e. people must reserve a certain amount of time if they want to shop at IKEA. Therefore I saw this as a pain point for time-sensitive HKers and went to their Causeway Bay store for 3 separate observations.
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The observations confirmed my hypothesis and I went through IKEA's online site which inevitably referred the customers to their offline locations. Hence this became the basis of my recommendations and added possible improvements on how IKEA could use current technologies and take advantage of user traits to improve their retail experience.