Overview

IKEA’s footprint is vast—over two billion people shop a range of 12,000 products in 500+ sales locations in 59 countries and online. But as digital becomes increasingly important—especially in the age of Covid—the retail behemoth needed to modernize and transform their business.

As their digital agency of record, Work & Co defined the vision of a future where technology holistically enhances the customer experience at every interaction. Of course, we didn’t stop there. We also helped bring it to life.

Our first challenge—creating IKEA’s first e-commerce-enabled mobile app—took just 6 months from concept to MVP. From there, we took on the entire multi-channel ecosystem of digital touchpoints, including the website, internal tools, and the stores.

The new experience led to greater efficiency, richer engagements, and incremental revenue.

Outcomes

4x

Growth in e-commerce in 3 years

4.8

Star rating, up from 2.5

60%

Increase in online sales in 2020

01.

Defining a vision for product and partnership

Already a worldwide leader in brick-and-mortar retail, IKEA’s leadership partnered with Work & Co to accelerate their digital transformation. Our team’s first task was to develop a cohesive and tech-savvy vision and strategy around which the global organization could align. We began a months-long process of research and brainstorming and problem solving.

• Defining a vision for product and partnership
• Overhauling web & mobile commerce
• A unifying design system
• Redefining in-store touch points

02.

Overhauling web & mobile commerce

To bring IKEA’s famed catalog to life for the digitally native, the app leads with inspiration. Customers browse the app the same way they would IKEA’s showroom—imagining how products complement their home or aesthetic—but with technology enhancing the journey.

A new AI-powered API suggests images based on a customer’s interests and evolving taste. Our cross-platform CMS allows editors to create content once, then deploy them across both the app and IKEA.com. And to bring over 760 collections to life, our team of writers built new engaging copy that scales no matter the country.

03.

A unifying design system

To address the challenge of keeping consistent design across all of the different touchpoints, we worked with IKEA to build a new design system. Skapa is a single source of truth for global button styles, iconography, interaction patterns, and motion libraries brought to life in one React Storybook component library. Components are strategically added and removed over time, meaning the design system is treated as a product that will never stop evolving, while simultaneously keeping the brand universally aligned.