Natuzzi Buys Into Microsoft’s HoloLens Technology

The blurring of the physical and digital worlds is becoming a trend in retail experiences—and Natuzzi is looking to bring both of these trends into focus. The Italian furniture brand recently announced a partnership with Microsoft where it will introduce the HoloLens 2, a virtual reality platform designed to help increase in-store sales. “I put myself into the consumer’s perspective and realized that it can’t be static,” says Pasquale Junior Natuzzi, the creative director at Natuzzi. “I wanted to make it more playful, more dynamic in terms of what the path to purchase is.”

The HoloLens 2 has the appearance of video game console complete with a padded headset that projects an alternate reality. But unlike, say, Middle Earth or another mystical land, this platform is homebound. Natuzzi aims to improve the physical retail experience by putting consumers in a digital showroom filled to the brim with all of its living room, bedroom, and kitchen products. Here, clients can juxtapose furniture and see first hand if it fits into a floor plan. Think “The Sims,” but in 3-D. Not only does this allow for a concise way for picking the right product for a given space, it also allows the brand to offer a greater selection while consolidating the square footage of a store. Additionally, Natuzzi will have an augmented reality component, where a visor will project holograms of pieces onto a clients home space. 360-degree renderings will also provided, and can be explored on a mobile device.

“Visualizing your room layout without actually building physical models is the foundation for a lot of the great work that Natuzzi is doing with the platform,” says Terry Farrell, the marketing director of mixed reality at Microsoft. “It’s going to create efficiency. When we look at these efficiencies, customers and partners are saving time; they’re saving money. They are doing something that they weren’t able to do before. That’s what we’re enabling with this technology.”

The partnership—which was initiated by Hevolus, a firm that specializes in developing new business models for companies—is not the first instance that the HoloLens has been utilized. Farrell admits that there have been many pilot programs enacted, including ones with Lowe’s and Chinese retailers, but this one with Natuzzi is the first to go to market.

For Natuzzi, to buy into this program required a great deal of investment and trust that its clients will value this experience. The company had a trial run in its Court Road store in London last year, which saw 80% of its purchases use HoloLens. While the direct result of this platform is uncertain, Natuzzi is betting big that it’s a game-changer. Come October, the brand will carry the technology in over a thousand of its locations globally, calling it the Natuzzi Augmented Store. “This is a way for them [the stores] to break away from a 2-D screen and bring it to life for a customer,” says Farrell. “That’s what they were benchmarking with their pilot.”