Tesco Korea points to the future of mobile grocery shopping

A test conducted by Home Plus, Korea’s second largest supermarket chain and 95% owned by UK-based grocery giant Tesco, highlights the potential for mobile proximity technologies to transform the way retailers operate.

Tesco

The test saw Home Plus recreating the layout of a typical supermarket, but in a subway station and using images of products that each included a QR code. Commuters could browse the ‘aisles’, pick the items they wished to purchase by snapping an image of the relevant barcode and then checkout from their phone. Their shopping basket was then delivered to their home at the end of the working day.

10,287 consumers visited the online Home Plus mall during the visit, the number of newly registered online shoppers increased by 76% and sales increased by 130%.

What does this have to do with NFC? A video explains in detail how the trial worked — and it’s clear from watching it that the speed and ease of NFC tag reading could make the service better yet:

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/nJVoYsBym88?version=3&hl=en_GB&rel=0

Either way, this is clearly a glimpse into the future of mobile shopping that anyone watching NFC should know about.

(Via Adverblog)

Next: Visit the NFCW Expo to find new suppliers and solutions

One comment on this article

  1. NFC frequencies would be too close to each other in this example. The use of QR codes is actually the best route since they can squeeze the products together.

    For NFC, I would think the best use would be to allow a phone to receive coupons while shopping at the “virtual store” and that NFC reader are can also display digital signage of any products, increasing advertising revenue.

    This actually is more interesting than Tesco UK mobile shopping model because this can be done in a way where a just-in-time grocery store next to the home train station can already fulfill the order and they can pick it up on the way home.

    The problem again is these kind of NFC models will explode in the inner cities among unbanked and urban consumers but the high tech companies are ignoring them..but that is another story…

Comments are closed.