The retailer bought 3-D imaging vendor Outward for $110 million with plans to generate augmented reality 3-D images across all of its brands.

Williams-Sonoma Inc. is pushing deeper into augmented reality with its acquisition of 3-D imaging platform Outward Inc.

The $110 million cash deal closed this week, says Felix Carbullido, chief marketing officer for Williams-Sonoma, which is the parent company of Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, PBteen and Williams-Sonoma Home. The retailer, No. 23 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 500, has worked with Outward for about two and a half years to develop an augmented reality feature for its Pottery Barn brand.

In March, Williams-Sonoma launched its first augmented reality app, called 3D Room View, for Android devices for its Pottery Barn brand. To use this app, shoppers must have a smartphone with Google Inc.’s Tango technology—which allows shoppers to view-products to scale—such as Google’s Pixel 2, Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro or the Asus Zenphone AR.

In November, Pottery Barn added its augmented reality feature to its iPhone app, making it available to shoppers with an iPhone 6s or later, running the iOS 11 software. More than 1,500 SKUs, or more than 80% of Pottery Barn’s core assortment of products, including sofas, sections, tables, consoles, chairs and lighting, are available in 3-D in the app, Carbullido says.

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Williams-Sonoma’s desire for its other brands to feature an augmented reality interface, which would require augmented reality expertise, led it to acquire Outward, Carbullido says.

Augmented reality is useful to shoppers trying to visualize how products will look in their own home before they buy, as well as when they are considering whether to rearrange a room, he says.

“[Augmented reality] gives them the confidence that they are making the right purchase, and it eliminates the second-guessing and enhances the inspiration,” Carbullido says.

“Furniture is heavy. To move it over to the next wall, in front of the fireplace—that’s difficult. It’s easy with augmented reality,” Carbullido adds.

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Williams-Sonoma is measuring the success of its AR features by the number of downloads and consumer usage, says Carbullido, although he would not disclose any numbers.

Carbullido also declined to say how money is involved in producing the 3-D images for the Pottery Barn app. However, other retailers that have developed 3-D images for augmented reality, such as Wayfair Inc. (No. 16 in the Top 500) and Build.com (No. 74), describe it as a time-intensive process, taking hours to create and ensure one product is dimensionally accurate. Overstock.com Inc. (No. 30), for example, has 25 full-time employees dedicated to its AR feature.

Outward will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, and it will continue to develop 3-D products for clients, including retailers, Carbullido says.

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“We think mass adoption is to our advantage. We are happy to see them continue partnerships,” says Carbullido, who adds that Williams Sonoma will evaluate each new client on a case-by-case basis.

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