Virtual grocery shops with smartphone interaction open for Finnish commuters
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Digital Foodie, a Finnish startup based in Helsinki, has been working together with the Helsinki Co-operative Society Elanto of S Group, to turn the walls of some of the busiest commuter locations in the capital into virtual stores. On Monday 4th June, the walls came to life with virtual displays of a selection of products with barcodes which customers can scan using Foodie.fm on their smartphones and get delivered home. Orders made before 3pm can be delivered the same day.
“Finns love their mobiles and technology that makes their everyday-lives easier. Now with the virtual stores, Foodie.fm users can order food while waiting for the metro or tram for example. S Group has been running personalised online store with Foodie’s technology for a while now and the new virtual store is a natural extension to their service,” explains Kalle Koutajoki, CEO of Digital Foodie.
The virtual store displays product assortments from Alepa, which is one of S Group’s grocery chains. S Group is one of the largest retail chains in Scandinavia and the leading retailer in Finland with 45,2% market share. Alepa grocery chain operates in the Helsinki area with over 80 neighbourhood stores.
In Finland, Foodie.fm already has over 220 000 users, which is impressive for a country of 5.3 million inhabitants. In addition to the personalised online store Foodie contains a fully integrated social community. This enables S Group’s customers to find ideas and inspiration as well as transparent information about the food they eat.
In the UK, Foodie.fm is available as a beta and the product assortment is linked to Tesco through the Tesco API enabling the community a direct checkout with Tesco.com. In the UK, Foodie runs independently.
