Shop Direct has formed commercial relationships with two Israeli start-ups after successfully trialling their ecommerce technologies wit customers in its in-house user experience lab.
Cimagine Media has created the world’s first truly markerless augmented reality app, allowing customers to visualise how items of furniture would fit into and look in their homes without the need to print a reference marker and place in on the floor. yRuler has developed technology that enables consumers to virtually try on products before they purchase by comparing them to a model in their size or to items they already own. The platform works with a wide variety of items, from handbags and wallets, to furniture, appliances and toys.
Over the last six months Shop Direct has worked with customers in its in-house user experiencelab to understand how they might interact with the Cimagine and yRuler technologies and adopt them into their typical shopping behaviour. These studies have helped to ensure that first time usage of the new technologies is easy and intuitive for customers. Both the cImagine and yRuler platforms will now move to live site testing across Shop Direct’s six digital department store websites.
Jonathan Wall, eCommerce Director at Shop Direct said “We were introduced to Cimagine and yRuler by the Israel tech Hub at the British Embassy while on a research trip to Tel Aviv in 2013. Each company had invented an innovative technology that had the potential to improve the shopping experience for our customers.
“Cimagine was in the early stages of developing its augmented reality app when we started working with the team. When we first put the technology in front of our customers in our user experience lab, only a proportion could understand how to operate it properly. We worked with the team to identify the challenges that customers were facing and, in the final round of testing, every customer could easily work out how to access and use the technology. It’s that kind of partnership that we’re looking to develop with start-ups.”
A delegation from Shop Direct now travels to Israel every few months, with the most recent trip taking place last week. While there the team works closely with the UK Israel tech Hub to meet the country’s most innovative technology companies.
Share