John Lewis launches its ‘Virtual Christmas Tree’ – will we all be buying ours this way this year?

With lockdown keeping us away from stores, it looks like the Christmas trees are coming to us

We all know that Christmas shopping is going to be different this year, so John Lewis has just released its virtual Christmas tree to help us out a little.

The retailer has launched an Augmented Reality (AR) feature on its app. It means that we can view what a fully decorated Christmas tree looks like in our living room, before we even buy them!

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Available on its iOS app only, John Lewis has given us tonnes of Christmas tree options to choose from. For the launch, it's available across more than half of the Christmas trees sold at John Lewis. So customers can virtually view the trees in their home, decorated or undecorated.

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Shoppers can use the feature to narrow down your decisions. This is aimed at making shopping time in-store quicker and simpler. You can even purchase your virtual Christmas tree on the app, so it's in your home well in time for Crimbo.

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To do it yourself, you need to download the John Lewis & Partners app. You can browse for Christmas Trees and look for the "View in room" label. When a square appears on your screen, tap it to load the Christmas tree.

christmas tree clicked by mobile camera

(Image credit: John Lewis)

You can then see what your tree would look like in your home, either decorated or undecorated. If that's your dream Christmas tree, you can then go ahead and buy it!

But is this the new way that we'll all be buying our Christmas trees? Some garden centres are still to remain open during the nationwide lockdown in England, but travelling outside may not be an option for everyone.

Will you be trying out the app?