The world’s largest furniture retailer is trying out a new QR code pilot program.
IKEA is well known for being an innovative and forward-thinking company and its new quick response codes (QR codes) mobile checkout system, which it is currently piloting in France, is no exception. If all goes according to plan, the new system will make it much easier and faster for customers to checkout at physical stores.
Customers can use their smartphone cameras to help improve their shopping experience in-store.
The new system merges online shopping with brick-and-mortar shopping by requiring customers to use their smartphones while shopping in the store and at checkout.
How it works is quite simple. Using an IKEA app, customers scan the items they intend to purchase from the store with their mobile phone and place the items in their cart as they shop. Once they reach the checkout point, the app combines all the items they’ve scanned to obtain the total purchase. From there it generates a QR code. This unique quick response code is scanned at checkout, so the customer can pay for their purchase with quick ease.
With only one scan required, quick response codes make the checkout process at IKEA a breeze.
Such a system is highly convenient for a store like IKEA where it is not uncommon for customers to purchase several large items that can be awkward to scan individually at checkout. This is especially the case if the barcode of a large and heavy item that needs to be scanned has been placed upside down in the cart. The new mobile checkout system eliminates this hassle.
IKEA’s global head of mobile solutions, Victor Bayata, said that what IKEA is looking at is “giving the customer the power to decide what to do and where to take the next step.” Bayata added that “What we need to do, and this is again the formula that everyone tries and tests, is that we need to understand our customers’ needs and wants.”
He explained that understanding how to combine the online experience with how people act in the store is how the company will provide their customers with “services that make sense.”
If the pilot project proves successful in France, the quick response codes checkout feature at IKEA is likely to be tried at other store locations and could make shopping in physical stores more attractive to customers, improving their overall in-store shopping experience.
The social media giant is now offering new options to help users to be able to connect more conveniently.
Facebook Messenger may not be the most popular mobile messaging application, but it isn’t all that far behind WhatsApp and it has now introduced additional features, including barcodes comparable to QR codes, which are meant to help people to better communicate with their friends and family members…and businesses and brands.
There usage of the mobile app has never been larger, as 900 million people use it every month.
That data is according to Mark Zuckerberg, himself. These days, people use the social network for a great deal more than just posting food pics and cranking about what has happened to them. It has become a very important business tool. It is specifically for this reason that many of the new features such as QR codes have been added to the application. It will make it much easier for businesses to converse with their customers and for people to investigate and communicate with the brands they like.
Among those features are barcodes similar to QR codes, as well as Messenger Links for faster conversation launching.
The barcodes are actually being called Messenger Codes, although they look just like a redesigned version of a quick response code. On the other hand, the links are just as self-explanatory, as they come in the form of a regular URL that can be tapped in order to begin a conversation over Facebook Messenger. The URLs are designed in the form of m.me/username and are essentially an extension of the traditional vanity URL.
The Messenger Codes appear to be regular QRcodes but that have undergone a facelift. They can be scanned using the camera of a smartphone or tablet and function as a shortcut into a conversation through the mobile app, instead of having to manually enter any identification info.
Zuckerberg described this take on QR codes by saying that “Messenger Codes let you just pull out your phone and scan someone else’s code — it’s the new circular pattern surrounding their profile photo in Messenger settings. Messenger then starts a conversation with them. No more misspelled names or mistyped phone numbers.”
