Ikea has launched its first global digital testing laboratory at its store in Alcorcón (Madrid), the eXperience Lab. With a surface area of 180 square metres, it will be open to customers and the employees themselves for testing solutions that will be used to design the store of the future. The initiative has involved an investment of almost half a million euros.

Ideas to be tested at the eXperience Lab will come from the Swedish multinational’s four hubs worldwide, one of which is in Spain. The decision to locate it inside a store is to make it a collaborative space, and to give priority to the experience of the end user, who together with the employees will be able to participate in the process of ideation, design, construction and implementation of new digital shopping solutions.

Innovative prototypes
Customers and employees will thus be able to decide whether to validate innovative prototypes that could improve the physical and digital shopping experience. Launching the lab is an initiative by Ikea Spain and Ingka Digital Spain, one of the four global hubs within the group's parent company.

This is not the first time that Ingka Digital Spain has been at the forefront of an innovative initiative. Its facilities have already produced digital solutions that are used, for example, to enable Ikea customers to view the range, interact, receive information and pay in a more flexible and convenient way during their visit. Ikea’s various divisions in Spain are behind other pilot projects that have been rolled out in other countries, such as urban stores and certain technological solutions.

The phygital store
Up to 120 Ikea digital employees will be directly involved in the operation of the eXperience Lab. Data and software engineers, computer experts, mathematicians, analysts and other professionals will work together to progress toward what Alfonso Negrete, digital manager at Ikea Spain, calls the phygital store, in reference to the union of the physical and the digital to access the full range of products at one location.

According to Negrete, “The eXperience Lab aims to stand out from typical innovation laboratories, because it prioritises how users experience technology. A constant flow of customers and store teams will be involved in testing prototypes and technology to understand how they interact with our tools and  products to ensure an in-depth understanding of their needs, anticipating them by creating solutions. This is what’s most important”.

The multinational has announced that it will be investing thirty million euros over the next two years to promote digitalisation and innovation. A third of this amount will be allocated to digital labelling projects.

^{Photo: Ikea}