I received my IKEA catalogue recently. I don’t know what is it about the IKEA catalogue but there is still something quite exciting to flip through a tactile catalogue in an age where everything is going digital. And whether you keep it or junk it, most households receives one every year.
Perhaps its the months of being in a global pandemic or maybe all the recent presentations about the post-Covid19 world where I was talking on and on about how businesses need to change because customers have changed, I was hoping my issue of post-Covid19 IKEA catalogue will somehow be different.
That it would recognize how we have massively shifted to shopping online across all categories of products. That we love the store (and the chicken wings more than the meatballs, sorry) but many may be a bit wary of going into big crowds. And we love having this beautiful catalogue sent straight to our home and in the new normal, this isnt just a catalogue to inspire us to visit the store but it IS the store. Or rather it can be.
There are little ways the catalogue can do more for IKEA and for its customers if we think of how the catalogue brings the store into every customer’s home and plays a different role in the customers’ journey. It is a significant investment to create this catalogue and to send this out to every household, might as well make it work much harder.
So here’s my wishlist of what I hope the catalogue would have been able to do but cannot:
Shop the room
The catalogue is full of pictures of rooms with items thoughtfully put together. Even when a picture is not about a room, multiple products are presented together in context. We are being sold a vision of beautiful interiors and of homes that we wish are our own. In the old normal, it will inspire us to plan a weekend trip to the store. In the new normal, we should be able to shop the whole look right at home, with a few clicks. I would love to be able to scan a picture of a room in the catalogue and easily add everything in the picture into a wish list or cart – temporarily chucked away but not forgotten. A digital way to dog ear a look for me to review for possible purchase later.
Companion app for the customer, not just for the store
For the catalogue to become part of an omnichannel experience, it needs a digital extension. I found an IKEA mobile app in the Playstore but it is a companion app for a store visit rather than a companion app for the customers across online and offline touchpoints. The product info is already accessible via this app and it should be extended to support catalogue browsing straight through to online shopping without the need to go to a physical store. Such a companion app will also make it easier to capture the purchase impulse from browsing the catalogue.
Would love to see the augmented reality features in this companion app as well. Not just to virtually show how a product may look in the room but to also help identify suitable furniture pieces given the dimension of the space a customer is trying to design for.
Bringing in the IKEA Family
IKEA has a membership program that has a record of most of our past purchases. In the past, the IKEA Family card was something you need to remember to bring with you during a store visit as customers are required to present the physical card to the cashier at the point of payment. Again, membership and associated higher level of engagement should not and need not be tied to just the physical store experience. The membership program is about having a relationship with IKEA and not a relationship with IKEA at the store alone. The IKEA family program can be used to string up an elevated level of engagement for members across online and offline touchpoints – special content and benefits hiding in plain sight. Unlocked if you are a Family member.
Hopefully next year, I get the whole IKEA store through the catalogue from the comfort of my home.
PS: There is a QR code in the Catalogue. Unfortunately it leads to a page not found on the website.
Digital Optimist 