Natuzzi Italia launches Augmented Store in New York

The Italian furniture brand Natuzzi Italia has recently launched its first Augmented Store in New York – Madison Avenue. Natuzzi developed a New Customer Journey to improve its physical retail experience and customer satisfaction with a combination of technological solutions like Virtual and Augmented Reality, Holographic display, advanced 3D modelling and interactive product configurator, with existing retail techniques.

According to the company, this project is born together with Microsoft and Hevolus Innovation, international partners for mixed reality, with which has been designed an innovative customer journey able to make the shopping experience truly engaging and exciting.

One of the first in the furniture industry, the new journey consists in a mixed reality system located in dedicated space in Natuzzi Italia store. By wearing mixed reality headsets, like Microsoft HoloLens, the visitor dives into the Natuzzi Augmented Store, an endless virtual showroom, where all the furnishing settings created by Natuzzi designers can be seen. Through the Augmented Store visitors can immerse themselves into the beauty of Natuzzi Italia moods and, with the help of the retailer, change to colors, finishes and materials can be made to the entire collection recreated in mixed reality, approaching the best design solutions for their homes.

“The retailer co-designs the interior project with the visitor and shows a scaled 3D model with Holoproject technology. As if having a 3D printer or the expert hand of an architect, the retailer shows the bespoke project thanks to the HoloLens, showing the model of the room allowing the customer to comprehend and appreciate its details. By wearing immersive mixed reality headsets, the customer will also be able to walk around the project and explore it from every point of view on a real scale, as if it was already manufactured. Before customers leave the store, they will receive a 360° rendering which they can browse by touching the screen of their phone or looking into a VR headset, and take home and show it to their families,” the brand said in a statement.

“The mixed reality system is a part of a broader strategy around customer interaction in both the digital and physical space. A digital innovation process that aims to improve the customer experience, reduce the time decision of the final customer and at the same time increase the conversion rate of the orders,” it further added.

Pasquale Junior Natuzzi, Creative Director and Stylist, Natuzzi S.p.A. said, “The Natuzzi Augmented Store is a revolution in the interior design and decoration. We have worked with our partners on the new customer journey to give consumers an idea of their homes in a way that makes them fall in love. We let them walk their home virtually showing our collection without boundaries. The Mixed Reality system gives us an incredible opportunity to lower the stock and the inventory in our stores and increase the sales per square foot.”

Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President, Retail and Consumer Goods Industries, Microsoft, said, “Providing a unique customer experience is critical in today’s competitive retail environment. At the same time, retailers are looking for ways to reimagine their physical and maximize in-store sales, Natuzzi’s new augmented store is a perfect example of how retailers can leverage mixed reality environments with Microsoft HoloLens to reimagine the in-store experience.”

Antonella La Notte, CEO of Hevolus, concludes, “We are proud of this partnership with an excellence like Natuzzi with whom we share a common mission: to bring concrete innovation and magical moments from Puglia to the rest of the world.”

New store concept featuring mixed reality technology will be extended to the entire Natuzzi retail network by 2020.

For more updates, subscribe to retail4growth newsletter - Click here