Currently being trialed in Sydney, Woolworth’s is experimenting with ‘virtual shopping’, a system based off Tesco’s South Korean model.

From South Korea to Sydney, and perhaps soon Brisbane, web design is further changing the way we shop. Woolworth’s new ‘Virtual Supermarket’ opened this weekend in Sydney’s busiest train station and will be watched closely by web designers home and abroad as to whether the concept catches on. Tjeerd Jegen, Woolworth’s director of supermarkets said the walls of the Town Hall Station have been converted into a virtual supermarket feature over 120 of Woolworth’s best selling products plus fruit and vegetables. “Sydney commuters going through Town Hall station will be the first in Australia to experience the cutting edge of supermarket innovation.”

The virtual walls, which look like a photographed image of a supermarket shelf, when coupled with the Woolworths App, demonstrates just how simple mobile shopping is in five steps:

1. Download or update the Woolworths App on your iPhone or Android smart phone.
2. Scan the product barcodes off the virtual supermarket wall.
3. Add them to your shopping list.
4. Place and pay for your order.
5. Your products are delivered to your kitchen bench.

The Woolworths mobile app has been available for some time now and has had bar code scanning capability, designed for customers to be able to scan products they are running low on in their fridge or pantry which will automatically add them to their personal shopping list. On the app they can also browse products by category, pay and have them delivered to their door. This next step however has the Brisbane web design community very excited as its success could pave the way for many other retailers to move in this direction. The concept is particularly compatible for products that don’t need to be physically touched or tried out, such as groceries, auto parts, books, even electronics. The virtual supermarket is currently being trialed in South Korea by British grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco. South Korea is considered one of the most technology focused countries in the world, and what catches on in South Korea may not also work elsewhere in the world so the Sydney trial is very exciting for a lot of Brisbane web designers.

Of course online shopping, even grocery shopping, isn’t exactly new, and the virtual supermarket has copped some critism for the fact that if you are going to be physically going to a location to physically browse through aisles, then why not go to a real supermarket and be able to walk out with the products in hand, rather than waiting a couple days for delivery?

However the virtual supermarket certainly has its advantages. For one it doesn’t require much physical floor space so can be installed in much smaller locations, or locations that serve other functions such as train station concourses etc. . They can also stock the same selection of products in a smaller space as they technically only need to display one of each product, not shelves and shelves of each product in order to meet demand. The virtual supermarket is also theoretically much cheaper to run, with much less staff, and physical space and associated costs required to stock the same amount of produce.

The virtual supermarket is currently being trialed in South Korea by British grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco. South Korea is considered one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and what catches on in South Korea may not also work elsewhere in the world, so the Sydney trial is very exciting for a lot of Brisbane web designers.

 

Posted on February 27, 2012 at 1:54 pm.

Written by Grace