This is a pretty innovative idea, has anyone tried this new virtual shopping service offered by Home Plus yet?:

On the way home from work, busy commuters in South Korea are able to save time doing their supermarket shopping thanks to virtual stores at bus stops and subway stations where people can pick up juice, fruit, snacks and more from their smartphones.

Tesco Home plus launched its Korean internet shopping service in 2002, offering 35,000 items and served by 60 stores. According to the company, e-commerce accounts for 3% of Home plus business. Grocery shopping makes up 85% of all e-commerce transaction, while non-food products account for the remaining 15%.

Of South Korea’s 50 million people, more than 60% use smartphones. Tesco Home plus adjusted its online shopping platform and came up with an application that taps into the great potential of mobile phone users.

Tesco Home plus’ head of online businesses Sean Hur noted that mobile applications and online shopping share the same basis.

Once customers order the products, the store checks the order list, then packages the products and delivers on the same day, 10 times a day.

The company launched the mobile application in April last year and so far there are more than 1.4 million downloads, with 55,000 customer visits daily. It plans to have reached two million downloads by the end of this year. The top five most popular uses are for shopping, coupons, clubcards, leaflets and store information.  [Bangkok Post]

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