Woolworths brings virtual supermarkets to Australia

Stephen Withers
Monday, 20 February 2012 07:27

Your IT - Home IT

Woolworths has opened Australia's first virtual supermarket in Sydney, although it is a 'pop-up' rather than a permanent fixture.

Virtual stores aren't completely new. For example, Tesco opened a virtual supermarket in a South Korean railway station in mid-2011, and Chinese store Yihaodian followed suit in 12 Shanghai stations later that year. More recently, Sportsgirl turned its Chapel St, Melbourne, branch into a virtual store while renovations are carried out.

What's a virtual store? In essence, an array of product photos - sometimes presented as if they were on real shelves - each tagged with a barcode or QR code, displayed in a public area. The idea is that passers-by use their mobile phones to scan the codes of products they wish to buy, and complete the purchases using the retailer's online store.

Woolworths opened what it claimed is Australia's first virtual supermarket yesterday. Located on the concourse level of Sydney's Town Hall station between the Park Street and George Street exits, it 'stocks' more than 120 popular products.

Shoppers use the Woolworths app (available for iPhone and Android, and recently reviewed by iTWire) to scan the barcodes into shopping lists and then place their orders, which are filled by real supermarkets near the delivery address. Woolworths normal $30 online shopping minimum order value and delivery charges (from $13) apply.

"The virtual supermarket wall is just one idea we are working on to make our customers' lives easier. The virtual supermarket will be at Town Hall for a week and we will take feedback from customers throughout this time.  This experience will provide us with important information on how we can develop this concept into the future," said Tjeerd Jegen, Woolworths director of supermarkets.

A second Woolworths virtual supermarket will reportedly be launched at Melbourne's Flinders Street station today.