The Swedish retail giant IKEA is dipping its toes into the virtual reality platform following the launch of its own virtual reality experience called IKEA VR Experience. IKEA describes the app as a sort of virtual reality kitchen which aims to transform how people shop.

The IKEA VR Experience was released on Valve's Steam platform and was developed in partnership with HTC. The virtual reality app runs on the HTC Vive headset. The new virtual reality experience puts customers into a virtual kitchen where they can try out the products before purchasing.

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IKEA Sweden managing director Jesper Brodin said in a statement, "Virtual reality is developing quickly and in five to ten years it will be an integrated part of people's lives. We see that virtual reality will play a major role in the future of our customers. For instance, someday, it could be used to enable customers to try out a variety of home furnishing solutions before buying them."

Looking at the some of the demonstrations provided by IKEA, it appears that its virtual reality app have a lot of potential, especially since it runs on the HTC Vive. The Vive, theoretically, can easily get accustomed to the size of the room it is trying to render which could help users in the future to see whether the items they are checking will fit in the actual room without the need of using a measuring tape, according to Tech Crunch.

Tech experts praise IKEA VR Experience for introducing new features into the platform. One of the many features of the IKEA VR app allow users to change the color of furnishings and shrink themselves in order to freely move around the virtual space, this feature also allow users to see a certain product in different perspectives. According to Fortune, users can also interact with some of the products like opening a drawer in order to check utensils, pots and pans.

IKEA claims that over the past few years, the company have been looking for new technologies that can be integrated into its products or the way it sells its products. The company have tested several digital tools before finally settling with virtual reality as the best fit for its demands.