How to create an app like Ikea?

With evolving technology, shoppers can select and buy anything, from ornate and branded clothes to elegant and timeless furniture, from the comfort of their homes. The credit for such easeful and convenient shopping goes to eCommerce apps like Ikea, the Swedish furniture retail conglomerate.

Ikea’s mobile app utilizes strategic features that make shopping easier and more comfortable where customers can skip the checkout line by scanning the product while walking through the store, save and organize their favorite shopping items in a list, track their orders, receive a delivery receipt, get their order home delivered, and much more.

Besides, Ikea’s innovative tool takes shopping to another level, where homeowners can visualize how Ikea furniture will look in their space by leveraging augmented reality (AR) technology. The virtual design tool allows homeowners to erase their furniture and replace it with sophisticated Ikea furniture.

Does it sound like an attractive way to draw in more customers and boost your customer retention and conversion rates? Well, it sure is. Businesses have been using website to app converter tools to launch an app for their eCommerce stores and enter the mCommerce realm with ease.

Entering the app market allows such businesses to unlock new opportunities and target the increasing number of online shoppers. You too can build an app like Ikea for your furniture and home décor business and take your sales to the next level. Stay tuned for all the details.

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Why building an app like Ikea is a must for your eCommerce business?

Mobile browser vs mobile app conversions

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There is no doubt that mobile phones are making business easier and can give what your target audience wants – a seamless and comfortable shopping experience. However, there are ample research-based eCommerce and app usage statistics that prove and underline the significance of mobile apps for every business.

Around 72 percent of consumers think that shopping apps make shopping easier. 57 percent of consumers use mobile apps for shopping, and 46 percent of consumers prefer shopping through mobile apps rather than online.

Moreover, the online furniture shopping industry is growing at a rapid pace. It consists of a market size of around 30 billion US dollars that is set to reach more than 40 billion US dollars in revenue by 2030. Notably, Ikea’s online product sales were alone responsible for 23 percent of the company’s revenue in the year 2023.

These numbers clearly highlight why a mobile app is a strategic and mandatory tool to boost sales and increase your visibility. Making an app like Ikea can enable you to pose strong competition by offering a next-level customer experience. Translate a similar app idea into reality and skyrocket your sales and customer engagement.

Benefits of making an app like Ikea

Here are the key benefits of why furniture retail and eCommerce businesses should invest in creating an app like Ikea:

Elevated customer experience: Online furniture shopping apps like Ikea ensure an immersive and interactive experience for users by enabling dynamic interactions with the products. From one-click access to stores to easy category segmentation and product discovery, apps can transform customers’ shopping experiences and make them easy and smooth.
Access to in-depth consumer data: Creating an app like Ikea can be a strategic decision for your business as apps allow you to gather valuable in-depth data on customer preferences, behavior, and interaction with products. Businesses can use this data to gain insights into customer trends, optimize product offerings, and refine marketing strategies.
Reduced product return: There are high chances of returns when a customer purchases a product, and it does not fit perfectly in the space as per their expectations. This possibility gets reduced if your business supports a mobile app with advanced technologies that allow the consumer to get ample information on the product at their fingertips and visualize the product in their space precisely.
Enhanced marketing and branding: Mobile apps offer ample options for marketing and engagement. Building an app like Ikea with different user-friendly features, like Shop & Go, order tracking, push notifications, chat, etc., captivates user attention and sets your brand apart from the rest. This gives a boost to your performance metrics and enhances customer loyalty and brand recognition.
Increased sales and retention: Mobile apps equipped with the latest technologies act as a new and reliable channel for sales, communication, marketing, and branding. For instance, the Ikea AR app reduced the company’s product return rates by 20 percent and increased digital sales by 50 percent. Going by this example, most online furniture stores can benefit from apps and increase their business by huge margins.

Key features to integrate into your furniture store app

The business model of an app like Ikea is designed to improve the customer experience, increase sales, and strengthen brand loyalty. However, it is the list of features of the app that ultimately decides its success and viability.

While it is not necessary to implement every feature that Ikea or other apps offer to their users, it is important to have a reference and understand what is trending in the industry. You can then go on to incorporate the features that matter for your business and align with your niche and brand goals.

Here are the key features that you consider adding to your furniture and home décor mobile app:

Social signup and log-in: The less tedious the signup process is, the more people will want to sign up for your app or move on to another app that does not take as long. For an effective and efficient application, mobile apps like Ikea should enable easy and multichannel registration and login via all social accounts.
Personalized user accounts: Your app should have the option to create a personal account where the customers are able to create and edit their profile, track orders and preferences, save a shopping wishlist, visit history or past orders, and so on.
Upsell and cross-sell opportunities: Within the app, Ikea can offer related products or accessories around selected furniture. This creates upsell as well as cross-selling possibilities. You can implement a similar feature in your furniture shopping app and increase your sales.
Product catalog: While building an app like Ikea, ensure that you have a product catalog with high-quality images with detailed product descriptions along with a review section. Also, ensure easy navigation by organizing and categorizing the product catalog.
Advanced search and filters: Integrate robust product search and filter functionality. Help users find products easily by applying filters based on categories, price ranges, styles, and other relevant criteria.
Secure payment gateways: Secure and seamless payment and shipping are important features for any eCommerce app. Ensure that your app has secure payment gateway integration with multiple payment options like credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets.
Customer support: Another essential feature to keep in mind while building an app like Ikea is that it should have a customer support option. You can integrate an in-app chat or messaging feature for customer support or a chatbot that captures leads and resolves customer queries.
Push notifications: Push notifications are essential for any retail application. This feature allows you to interact with your customers and notify them of new and existing products, offers, campaigns, discounts, sales, and more.

How to build an app like Ikea in 2024?

In this section, learn how to create an app, and launch your own furniture shopping mobile application. Explore the popular trends and methodologies of app development and make your own app like a pro.

Conduct market research

Before delving into development, you need to clearly define the vision and goals of your online furniture store app project. Creating an app like Ikea becomes easy when your business plans are clear. It will help you identify a suitable niche and targeted market, and also give you an idea of how much it costs to develop an eCommerce mobile app.

Start by conducting extensive market research and analysis to understand on-demand app development market trends and measure the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Check out all the popular furniture shopping apps, such as Wayfair, Ikea, etc., and get inspiration to chalk out the development plan for your own unique furniture shopping app.

Design your app

Once you are done with research, you can move to prototyping and designing. Prototyping isn’t an optional step; it is an integral part of app development required to build an effective, user-friendly, and efficient product. It helps to simulate the functionalities of your mobile before full-scale production commences. It is like a mock-up of your mobile app in which you can make changes to improve and enhance the final product.

Once you have created mockups of your app, you can proceed to UX/UI design. Make sure that your app design is aesthetic and easily navigable. Focus on creating simple and attractive designs for your eCommerce or furniture retail app. Do not overcomplicate or clutter your app with excessive features and test each element before incorporating it into your app.

Pick a development method

Now, once the design and prototype are validated, the next step is to start the full-scale production of your furniture app. It involves implementing the features and functionalities in your app. Remember, the exact steps might differ as per your development method.

Usually, businesses build an in-house IT team of developers or outsource the requirement to a mobile app development agency which is a time-consuming process and requires a huge capital. However, with evolving times, there are different affordable methods available to build an app easily. You can pick the method that suits your budget and goals and proceed accordingly.

Explore the popular methods below and develop the furniture app of your dreams.

1: AppMySite’s no-code mobile app builder

With AppMySite’s no-code app builder, businesses can build an app without having any prior technical or coding knowledge. It is one of the best solutions to create a furniture shopping app that aligns with your business goals and vision. The best thing is that you can control and preview your entire app project and create the app in only a few minutes.

The furniture store app builder speeds up development and deployment and enables you to go from idea to app in no time. Here, you also get the option to convert your WooCommerce website into a user-friendly mobile app. Similarly, you can create apps for WordPress or any other web technology or simply build everything from scratch. You can create native and feature-rich apps for your online store and offer a matchless shopping experience to your customers.

2: Low-code app development solutions

The next option is low-code app development platforms that allow businesses to develop and deploy a tailored mobile app. However, these platforms require a decent amount of technical knowledge and coding skills, as opposed to a no-code app builder.

You can look for a low-code app development platform that offers a holistic app development environment, like app design, development, and deployment. Also, ensure the platform offers maintenance and support because it is the most essential phase after the app goes live.

3: App development agencies or experts

Hiring an app development professional is the traditional and expensive method for building an app like Ikea. Besides being expensive, it is also a time-consuming process because you will have to find the right agency or hire experienced developers who can understand your requirements and create prototypes accordingly.

Usually, it will take around six months to build a customized app with an agency or in-house IT experts. If you are looking for a company, ensure it guarantees on-time delivery and hassle-free post-delivery support. Pick this method if you have the time and budget for it. Else, you can always create your own apps with a no-code app creator.

Wrapping up

In this highly advanced and tech-oriented world where everything is available with a click, furniture apps are no exception. Popular apps like Ikea have changed the way people buy furniture and other home décor products. This ever-increasing demand has not only opened up new business opportunities but also increased the popularity of mobile app development service providers.

It is the best time to take a chance and boost your business by building an app like Ikea. The choice is yours whether you want to go the traditional way, which is time-consuming and expensive, or leverage advanced new-age technologies like AppMySite’s free app builder. The no-code platform makes the app development process easier and allows you to scale your online business beyond limits.

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