Virtual Grocery Shopping from the Subway Platform
by geofferson | Posted on Oct 18 2011 | Technology 0 Comments | 0 Bookmarked
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Who’s got time to go grocery shopping anymore? Life in Shanghai moves fast, and if you’re like us, you’ve got way more important things to do, like drinking, working, carousing, partying and more drinking. That’s why we love Yihodian.com. The online supermarket’s gently borrowed the idea from Tesco in South Korea and installed virtual supermarkets in 15 Metro stations around Shanghai, including Jing’an Temple, Nanjing Xi Lu, People’s Square, Nanjing Dong Lu, Lujiazui, Shaanxi Nan Lu and Xujiahui. After your virtual shopping spree is complete, the real groceries you ordered are delivered to your doorstep.

It all makes shopping a cinch: just download the Yihaodian app (available for iPhones and Android phones), sidle up to one of the supermarket “shelves” while you’re waiting for the Metro and scan the barcodes in front of you to drop them in your electronic shopping cart. They’ve got you covered on just about every front—there are RMB1 juice bottles, hairy crabs, Pocky, bulk packs of Huggies, hiking boots, brand-name shampoos, even LCD TVs and RMB3,500-plus HTC phones.

Their selection of imported goods is impressive as well. Scan in orders of Act II microwave popcorn, Snack Packs, Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, Hunt’s tomato sauce and Jelly Belly candies. Even better, the prices are competitive—the Act II popcorn is RMB25 at City Shop and RMB14.9 on sale at Yihaodian (RMB24.78 regular price).

And yes, they offer alcohol as well. We spotted a 700ml bottle of Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced Gold on sale for just RMB84.5 (no-name vodka gets as cheap as RMB50.9 for 700ml), and their RMB2.4 cans of Suntory are cheaper than Family Mart’s.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? No worries. The app also allows you to search the store’s database without having to scan anything in. Deliveries to most of Shanghai take one day, and shipping costs are waived for anything over RMB100 and below 10kg. You might need a little Chinese help to sign up, but other than that, they’ve made the entire process as simple as possible.

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