5 ms·

Korea’s Tesco reinvents grocery shopping with QR-code “stores”

74 points by mattraibert 15y ago

neovive 15y ago
I wonder if there is a comparison between this form of online shopping vs. traditional online shopping via Freshdirect. Perhaps, the visual experience makes it more appealing and gives it the feel of real shopping as opposed to using a text search or link clicking.
- hugh3 15y ago
  While I've never used Freshdirect, I can't imagine it's quite as fast and easy to browse products there as it is to just visually scan across a huge wall of products. That's the advantage for the consumer. The advantages are bigger for the seller. You don't have to rely on people remembering "Oh yes, I need to do some shopping" and going to your website. Instead they'll be walking through the subway station, remember "Oh yes, I need kim chee" and buy some. It's as good as having a store in the subway station, except that the store takes up no room and costs way less. I can really see this store-on-a-wall thing taking off, and not just in Korea. If you can be the middleman who standardizes the protocol which lets anyone buy anything and get it delivered to their home, just by scanning a QR code, you'll make a lot of money.
  - dpapathanasiou 15y ago
    "You don't have to rely on people remembering 'Oh yes, I need to do some shopping' and going to your website." In that sense, the wall scanning is a bit of a gimmick; the critical thing is to remember you want/need to buy something. FreshDirect, for example, does have an iphone app, but without the visual reminder, you may forget to order. "If you can be the middleman who standardizes the protocol which lets anyone buy anything and get it delivered to their home, just by scanning a QR code, you'll make a lot of money." That's an interesting idea: tie a QR reader app to someone's credit card or banks account on one end, and to an automated shopping cart on the other (assuming the QR links back to a specific product, of course).
    - JonWood 15y ago
      In that sense, the wall scanning is a bit of a gimmick; the critical thing is to remember you want/need to buy something. This is the big thing. I work for an online grocery shopping startup, and when speaking to lapsed customers the biggest answer we get as to why they've stopped shopping with us is that they forgot we exist and went to the supermarket instead. Breaking people's habits is a hugely difficult thing, but vital in a sector where most people's first thought is to go to drop into Tesco on the way home from work.
ig1 15y ago
Tesco (which is actually a British chain that operates in Korea rather than a Korean chain) has been leading online grocery shopping for a long time. It first offered Videotex Teleshopping in 1984 and was the first to offer internet shopping in 1996. It's online store Tesco.com is the largest online grocery store in the world (largely driven by the fact that online grocery shopping is much more mainstream in the UK compared to most other markets) They're trialling a lot of interesting tech at the moment (API, in-store GPS for finding products, etc.). One of their major competitors Ocado makes 10% of their income through iPhone "scan-and-shop" orders so it's definitely a huge market.
- gmac 15y ago
  Having just placed my fortnightly shop using Ocado's excellent iPad app, I think wandering round the kitchen/bathroom to check what I still have during the process of buying new stuff is the most compelling use for the iPad I've yet found.
- willyt 15y ago
  Yep. I think Tesco and Ocado both use the Redlaser barcode scanning sdk in thier IOS apps http://redlaser.com/sdk/ http://redlaser.com/sdk/
luckyisgood 15y ago
A more advanced version would look like this: Tesco would install digital walls/displays all over the city (country) and control all the displays remotely. The city would earn nice money from renting the display space to Tesco.
bane 15y ago
Perhaps one of the best ideas I've ever seen in action. A much better "browsing" (in the shopping sense of browsing) experience than just flipping through a list of items on your phone. The best part is that it gets delivered to your home. So you can literally shop while waiting for the next train, and there's a good chance the groceries will arrive not too long after you get home.
cliff 15y ago
This is FAKE! http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/489884.html http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/48... [updated with English article] But it's a really cool, fun idea :) grocery shopping while waiting for the subway. It's one of the coolest concepts for a subway ad I've seen.
- exit 15y ago
  can you tl;dr the article? i gave up on making sense of the translation when it mentions "'K (K) -9' self-propelled artillery".
  - cliff 15y ago
    Actually, that translation was accurate. :) I found an English version of this article at http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/489884.html http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/48... Basically, they put up this ad in a subway for a couple hours at night, filmed it, and then took it down.
    - espressodude 15y ago
      All the while, I thought this was true! I didn't know this was fake. But, I agree. This is a very very awesome idea. I would want to have something like this near here. It really fits my lifestyle.
S4M 15y ago
I don't see why they need to use the trick with the walls at all. Why can't the consumers do online shopping from their smartphones directly?
poutine 15y ago
Much of the shopping experience could be replicated online if people used large enough photos. The postage stamp sized photos that many sites use are really stupid. So if you're building an online shopping site give me big juicy full screen photos.
wooptoo 15y ago
I like how they respect their competition, unlike in the software world where everybody is throwing rotten eggs at everybody.
- Groxx 15y ago
  I think you might be blindly giving them credit that isn't due. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857088 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857088 tl;dr: the ad won them $400k in a competition, though it was never aired, and the setup existed for only 2 1/2 hours. Despite that: >The Cannes Lions festival, called the Olympics of advertising, strictly limits submissions to advertisements that have actually been run in the media. I don't quite think that's respecting their competition.
jasonjei 15y ago
I think it would be a real cool concept if I could upload my list ahead of time or have my groceries retrieved from a conveyer belt at the market that's automatically retrieved similar to how Amazon's automated distribution systems work. Of course, I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap or practical for actual use.
softbuilder 15y ago
1. Very tired of seeing this float around. I expect more from HN. (Here come the downvotes. So be it.) 2. This is a terrible, terrible idea. If you've got a smartphone, you'd just shop online. Maybe while you're riding the train. 3. It's fake? That would make so much more sense.
- chrischen 15y ago
  > 2. This is a terrible, terrible idea. If you've got a smartphone, you'd just shop online. Maybe while you're riding the train. Well not really. The billboards serve as advertisements, that you just happent to also be able to shop from.
  - softbuilder 15y ago
    I can't remember the last billboard I saw that required me to bend down to look at it.
    - electromagnetic 15y ago
      You bend down to recognize a product near waist height? My friend, you need glasses.
- mattraibert 15y ago
  Not downvoting, but I just wanted to say that I thought this article was relevant. I'm disappointed that it's fake, but an article about novel new ways that people can interact with vendors using their smart phones seems like pretty standard hacker news. Especially amongst all the repetitive articles about software patents, bitcoins and google+. Don't get me wrong, I think all those things are interesting hacker news, I was just trying to add diversity.
TamDenholm 15y ago
I'm assuming Koreans have a technology friendly subway since doing this on the London Underground wouldnt really work since you dont get a signal, nor is there wifi or anything.
- pwim 15y ago
  Yes, there is signal on the subways in Korea.

74 points by mattraibert 15y ago

I wonder if there is a comparison between this form of online shopping vs. traditional online shopping via Freshdirect. Perhaps, the visual experience makes it more appealing and gives it the feel of real shopping as opposed to using a text search or link clicking.

hugh3 15y ago
While I've never used Freshdirect, I can't imagine it's quite as fast and easy to browse products there as it is to just visually scan across a huge wall of products. That's the advantage for the consumer. The advantages are bigger for the seller. You don't have to rely on people remembering "Oh yes, I need to do some shopping" and going to your website. Instead they'll be walking through the subway station, remember "Oh yes, I need kim chee" and buy some. It's as good as having a store in the subway station, except that the store takes up no room and costs way less. I can really see this store-on-a-wall thing taking off, and not just in Korea. If you can be the middleman who standardizes the protocol which lets anyone buy anything and get it delivered to their home, just by scanning a QR code, you'll make a lot of money.
- dpapathanasiou 15y ago
  "You don't have to rely on people remembering 'Oh yes, I need to do some shopping' and going to your website." In that sense, the wall scanning is a bit of a gimmick; the critical thing is to remember you want/need to buy something. FreshDirect, for example, does have an iphone app, but without the visual reminder, you may forget to order. "If you can be the middleman who standardizes the protocol which lets anyone buy anything and get it delivered to their home, just by scanning a QR code, you'll make a lot of money." That's an interesting idea: tie a QR reader app to someone's credit card or banks account on one end, and to an automated shopping cart on the other (assuming the QR links back to a specific product, of course).
  - JonWood 15y ago
    In that sense, the wall scanning is a bit of a gimmick; the critical thing is to remember you want/need to buy something. This is the big thing. I work for an online grocery shopping startup, and when speaking to lapsed customers the biggest answer we get as to why they've stopped shopping with us is that they forgot we exist and went to the supermarket instead. Breaking people's habits is a hugely difficult thing, but vital in a sector where most people's first thought is to go to drop into Tesco on the way home from work.

ig1 15y ago

Tesco (which is actually a British chain that operates in Korea rather than a Korean chain) has been leading online grocery shopping for a long time. It first offered Videotex Teleshopping in 1984 and was the first to offer internet shopping in 1996. It's online store Tesco.com is the largest online grocery store in the world (largely driven by the fact that online grocery shopping is much more mainstream in the UK compared to most other markets) They're trialling a lot of interesting tech at the moment (API, in-store GPS for finding products, etc.). One of their major competitors Ocado makes 10% of their income through iPhone "scan-and-shop" orders so it's definitely a huge market.

gmac 15y ago
Having just placed my fortnightly shop using Ocado's excellent iPad app, I think wandering round the kitchen/bathroom to check what I still have during the process of buying new stuff is the most compelling use for the iPad I've yet found.
willyt 15y ago
Yep. I think Tesco and Ocado both use the Redlaser barcode scanning sdk in thier IOS apps http://redlaser.com/sdk/ http://redlaser.com/sdk/

luckyisgood 15y ago

A more advanced version would look like this: Tesco would install digital walls/displays all over the city (country) and control all the displays remotely. The city would earn nice money from renting the display space to Tesco.

bane 15y ago

Perhaps one of the best ideas I've ever seen in action. A much better "browsing" (in the shopping sense of browsing) experience than just flipping through a list of items on your phone. The best part is that it gets delivered to your home. So you can literally shop while waiting for the next train, and there's a good chance the groceries will arrive not too long after you get home.

cliff 15y ago

This is FAKE! http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/489884.html http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/48... [updated with English article] But it's a really cool, fun idea :) grocery shopping while waiting for the subway. It's one of the coolest concepts for a subway ad I've seen.

exit 15y ago
can you tl;dr the article? i gave up on making sense of the translation when it mentions "'K (K) -9' self-propelled artillery".
- cliff 15y ago
  Actually, that translation was accurate. :) I found an English version of this article at http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/489884.html http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/48... Basically, they put up this ad in a subway for a couple hours at night, filmed it, and then took it down.
  - espressodude 15y ago
    All the while, I thought this was true! I didn't know this was fake. But, I agree. This is a very very awesome idea. I would want to have something like this near here. It really fits my lifestyle.

S4M 15y ago

I don't see why they need to use the trick with the walls at all. Why can't the consumers do online shopping from their smartphones directly?

poutine 15y ago

Much of the shopping experience could be replicated online if people used large enough photos. The postage stamp sized photos that many sites use are really stupid. So if you're building an online shopping site give me big juicy full screen photos.

wooptoo 15y ago

I like how they respect their competition, unlike in the software world where everybody is throwing rotten eggs at everybody.

Groxx 15y ago
I think you might be blindly giving them credit that isn't due. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857088 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857088 tl;dr: the ad won them $400k in a competition, though it was never aired, and the setup existed for only 2 1/2 hours. Despite that: >The Cannes Lions festival, called the Olympics of advertising, strictly limits submissions to advertisements that have actually been run in the media. I don't quite think that's respecting their competition.

jasonjei 15y ago

I think it would be a real cool concept if I could upload my list ahead of time or have my groceries retrieved from a conveyer belt at the market that's automatically retrieved similar to how Amazon's automated distribution systems work. Of course, I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap or practical for actual use.

softbuilder 15y ago

1. Very tired of seeing this float around. I expect more from HN. (Here come the downvotes. So be it.) 2. This is a terrible, terrible idea. If you've got a smartphone, you'd just shop online. Maybe while you're riding the train. 3. It's fake? That would make so much more sense.

chrischen 15y ago
> 2. This is a terrible, terrible idea. If you've got a smartphone, you'd just shop online. Maybe while you're riding the train. Well not really. The billboards serve as advertisements, that you just happent to also be able to shop from.
- softbuilder 15y ago
  I can't remember the last billboard I saw that required me to bend down to look at it.
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    You bend down to recognize a product near waist height? My friend, you need glasses.
mattraibert 15y ago
Not downvoting, but I just wanted to say that I thought this article was relevant. I'm disappointed that it's fake, but an article about novel new ways that people can interact with vendors using their smart phones seems like pretty standard hacker news. Especially amongst all the repetitive articles about software patents, bitcoins and google+. Don't get me wrong, I think all those things are interesting hacker news, I was just trying to add diversity.

TamDenholm 15y ago

I'm assuming Koreans have a technology friendly subway since doing this on the London Underground wouldnt really work since you dont get a signal, nor is there wifi or anything.

pwim 15y ago
Yes, there is signal on the subways in Korea.