Design Museum - Design of the Year 2012
The Homeplus virtual store in an innovative shopping experience is an underground station that allows commuters to shop for food on their way to or from work. In August 2911, Homeplus, the South Korean division of the UK-based retailer Tesco, opened the first virtual store in an underground station in the capital Seoul. From large illuminated billboard displays that mimic supermarket shelves, customers are able to select their purchases by scanning barcodes with their smartphone and using a mobile app.
Once customer's hopping is complete, their 'digital trolley; is sent and the products are delivered to their home that same day. Aimed to help busy people by providing a quick and more convenient method of shopping, the initial trial at one Seoul underground station will be expanded to other stations.
Korea’s Tesco reinvents grocery shopping with QR-code “stores”
There’s just no time to make a trip to the grocery store some weeks. Tesco Home Plus is a supermarket chain in Korea that’s vying to be rated No. 1, and leave its second place spot to E-Mart, its main competitor. E-Mart has a greater number of stores than Tesco, but the company is determined to become the No. 1 grocery chain without increasing the number of stores. How does it plan to do this? Why, with the use of a smartphone, of course.
According to Tesco, Koreans are the second hardest working people in the world, and time is literally money. Taking an hour a week for grocery shopping can be a real drag, so the company devised a way to have the store come to the people. Tesco set up virtual grocery stores in locations like subway/metro stations so that people can literally do their grocery shopping while waiting for the train.
The walls are plastered with posters that resemble the aisles and shelves of a supermarket. They’re lined from top to bottom with the products you’d normally see while grocery shopping. The only difference is that you can’t just grab the product and check out. The groceries each have a QR code which the shopper scans with a smartphone camera and adds to a shopping list. When the shopper has scanned all the codes for all the groceries needed, he pays using his phone and the groceries are then delivered to his home.
QR-code-based shopping allows the customer to shop at more locations, many of which are more convenient than making a trip to the grocery store. A big advantage of getting your groceries delivered right to your door is that in major cities where driving isn’t really an option, people are left lugging heavy bags on the train and up a couple of flights of stairs before they reach their door.
A nitpicky gripe to this way of shopping is that checking out the product’s information will be impossible. More specifically, the shopper won’t be able to turn the product around to see the nutritional facts. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to look at this in the store displays. There may be an option available once you scan your QR code, but otherwise, people will literally be buying food based on a photo. You also don’t get to choose what produce you buy, which is a nice part about shopping in a store. Do you like your bananas a little more un-ripened than ripe? You’ll get whatever the store decides to deliver, meaning you can’t pick and choose the exact product that you want. A small price to pay for convenience we suppose.
This isn’t the first case of ordering groceries to be delivered to your home, but it’s unique since you’re not just sitting in your home clicking on a website. The customer actually gets to stroll down the “aisle” while waiting for a train to arrive and visually make their choices.
Source: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/koreas-tesco-reinvents-grocery-shopping-with-qr-code-stores-20110628/
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