Magnolia Market Uses Augmented Reality in Ecommerce to Bridge Online-to-Offline

By: Jason Buckland

It’s late summer, 2017, and Stone Crandall is inside the office of Joanna Gaines, Fixer Upper co-star and co-founder of Magnolia — the famed home and lifestyle brand from Waco, Texas.

Magnolia’s digital experience director has a surprise. Alongside his development team, which over four years helped evolve the home outfitter from its offline roots into the growing ecommerce presence it enjoys today, Crandall had for many months been working on the company’s next big thing.

He places a blue vase on Gaines’ desk, takes a photo of it, and then holds up his phone. On his screen, the vase appears elsewhere in the company’s headquarters. Presuming it’s simply the earlier photo Crandall had snapped, Gaines gives a nod of approval.

But then, the reveal. “Well, that’s not really there,” Crandall says. “I virtually placed that.”

There is a moment of confusion until it hits home.

Though it was only in a development stage at the time, this was an early look at Magnolia Market’s augmented reality (AR) app, which would allow users to view 3D models of the company’s products as if placed anywhere in their homes, anywhere in the world.

It became, upon its release later in the year, a new frontier for Magnolia’s evolving commitment to ecommerce, further confirmation that this brand saw technology as the way to grow the company’s online bona fides right alongside its real-world footprint.

“I think Joanna’s reaction was the same as anybody else’s,” Crandall says. “You put your hand in front of it, and you’re like, ‘It doesn’t make sense. It’s not really there.’ You begin to think, ‘This is kind of wild. This is incredible.’”

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