Chinese online grocery retailer Yihaodian is attracting smartphone-toting, time-starved consumers with the launch of invisible ‘virtual supermarkets’.

Yihaodian has created 1000 virtual supermarkets across China. Each one, dubbed ‘Unlimited Yihaodian’, will comprise a plain white wall: using 3D imagery visible via a mobile phone, customers can purchase any of 1000 items by scanning the product. After adding it into their virtual baskets they can have it delivered to their homes.

The stores use augmented reality technology which means consumers can only see, visit and shop in them by using a special Yihaodian Virtual Store App while being physically at one of the 1000 locations.

The first virtual stores have been rolled out in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing.

“It combines traditional retailing with ecommerce,” said Yu Gang, board chairman of Yihaodian. “So customers can enjoy virtual window shopping in a nearby neighborhood as well as the convenience of online purchasing.”

US retail giant Walmart, which holds a 51.3 per cent stake in Yihaodian, says it won’t get involved in the virtual supermarkets venture, citing regulatory reasons.

UK retailer Tesco, through Home Plus, has launched this kind of new multi-channel commerce last year when it created virtual grocery stores on subway platforms in South Korea. It launched similar ecommerce platform at Gatwick Airport in the UK in August this year, allowing travellers to shop before they fly and have the goods delivered to their homes.

The virtual supermarkets are aimed at eliminating some of the inconveniences of traditional grocery shopping such as carrying bags from the store and transporting them home as well as having to wait in checkout lines.

A Yihaodian spokesman says each of the stores is packed with promotional discount coupons and high-value, free gift vouchers just waiting to be claimed by shoppers.

“We even have a store at Tiananmen Square.”

GB