Target uses augmented reality to help you shop for furniture
You don't have to buy that couch to see if it looks good in your home.
Target has been introducing high-tech ways to shop for months, including real-time maps of its stores and a Pinterest-powered visual search tool. Now, it has added an augmented reality feature to its mobile website to help you shop for the perfect furniture for your home. Target calls the feature "See It In Your Space," because, like Ikea's Place app for iOS, you can literally use it to see what a piece of furniture would look like in your home.
You simply need to take a picture of the space where you want to place, say, a couch in. When you choose a virtual item from the product list, just tap "See it in your space" and position and scale the couch wherever and however you want. You can add it to your cart straight from the AR interface if you decide that it's a good fit. At this point in time, you can only choose from 200 piece of "Project 62" home products, but Target plans to add thousands more by 2018.
According to TechCrunch, Target developed the feature itself within the past six months and chose to focus on mobile because it "wanted to reach a wider audience more quickly." The spokesperson added: "We also feel like by using mobile web, it's a simple experience -- guests can easily snap pictures using their phone, they don't have to use any additional hardware or apps. We just felt like it was a really straightforward experience."
