There's been numerous recent innovations designed to make the chore of grocery shopping less painful for consumers, with Indian AaramShop’s use of Facebook being one recent example.
Hoping to raise the level of convenience for time-strapped commuters in South Korea, Home plus — the Korean branch of Tesco PLC — recently launched a series of virtual stores on subway platform that enable customers to make purchases using their smartphones while they wait for a train.
The virtual stores, constructed from large backlit billboards, displayed images of all the items one would expect to find in a standard Home plus shop.
QR codes were then placed next to the image of each product, enabling smartphone equipped commuters to automatically add the merchandise to their virtual basket by scanning the code.
The total order was then delivered to the commuter’s door once they returned home from work.
During the campaign Home plus online sales increased by 130%, with over 10,000 customers trying the stores.
According to Home plus, Korea is the second hardest working country in the world, making the need for a convenience-focused solutions particularly pressing.
Any idea that saves people time and effort, however, is ripe for adaptation anywhere.
A video below explains the premise in more detail: