Food for thought ... Alana Pozzebon (left) and Liv Cougan check out the Woolworths virtual supermarket. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones
The supermarket wars have moved from the grocery aisles to cyberspace, with Woolworths unveiling a virtual supermarket at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne.
The temporary billboard, which looks like a real supermarket shelf with images of 120 key grocery items, enables commuters to purchase products by scanning the barcodes on the billboard with their smartphones. The barcodes take users to Woolworths' mobile phone app where the store's full range of 40,000 products can be purchased and delivered to homes and offices within hours.
The virtual grocery store - first launched by British grocery giant Tesco in South Korean train stations last year - is the latest move by the supermarket giant to boost online sales by catering to consumers who like to shop on the go.
Despite online grocery shopping being available in Australia for 14 years, online grocery sales account for just 1 per cent of total grocery sales, according to last year's productivity commission into the retail industry. This compares to up to 4 per cent in Britain and about 2 per cent in the US.
''The information we're getting is that in the next year or so the amount of internet traffic coming from a mobile phone will be higher than from a desktop PC,'' says Woolworths innovation program manager Has Fakira.
''We see this as an ideal way to provide greater choice and convenience to those customers who like to shop while they're busy and on the go, whether they are on a bus or train or in the park.''
PayPal Australia says more than 1000 purchases an hour are being made here from mobile phones.
Last week Woolworths upgraded the mobile phone app it launched last August to include a checkout facility, allowing users not just to compare prices and create shopping lists, but to shop from their mobile phones. Coles' mobile phone app at present doesn't allow users to buy online.
Deakin University retail industry fellow Steve Ogden-Barnes believes the immediate growth of online grocery shopping in Australia will be minimal and driven by the ''ultra time-poor and the ultra housebound''.
''For many consumers online grocery shopping is still a pretty laborious activity if you're buying 50 or 60 products compared with buying one or two items of clothing,'' he says. ''I think a lot of people think it's just as easy to go to the shops yourself.'' He believes the real growth in online grocery shopping is with discount retailers such as GroceryRun, SupermarketDeals and OffYourTrolley that offer non-perishable grocery products at up to 50 per cent off.
Since its launch in October, GroceryRun has received more than 200,000 orders. A spokeswoman says more than 20 per cent were made from iPhones and iPads.
