The impetuous XXI century sometimes leaves the ordinary person no time for household chores or shopping. Market researchers have come to the conclusion that in these conditions it is necessary to bring stores closer to a potential buyer. One of the modern technologies that allows you to make purchases while you are forced to wait is implemented in the form of a virtual supermarket.
Tesco, one of the largest retailers in the UK, opened a virtual supermarket at London's Gatwick Airport in August 2012. In it, passengers can make the purchases they need using smartphones equipped with Android and iOS operating systems.
To make a purchase in a supermarket, you need to take a snapshot of the barcode corresponding to the product you have chosen from a showcase or display located on the wall. For this, a specialized application released by Tesco is provided, which is pre-installed on a mobile phone. The virtual supermarket operates using so-called QR codes. The customer is only required to scan such a code via his phone, after which the selected products will be placed in a virtual shopping cart.
The organizers of the virtual supermarket rightly expect that during the forced waiting period, passengers will go shopping. At the same time, according to the newspaper The Guardian, at the same time it will be possible to arrange the delivery of selected goods by the time of return from the trip.
In total, at Gatwick Airport, it is planned to install at least ten displays for acquaintance with goods and making purchases. The range of products is wide enough, it includes the most popular products of the Tesco retail chain. It is too early to talk about the success of the project, since the innovation requires a change in consumer habits. So far, according to polls by journalists, airport passengers are rather restrained about the virtual way of shopping.
This supermarket is not the only one in the world. A year earlier, a promotional campaign was held in Seoul, in which Tesco and Samsung took part. It was decided to place the South Korean virtual supermarket at subway stations so that subway passengers can shop while waiting for the train. The Seoul campaign was successful, which allowed Tesco to decide to expand its influence in the European market.
