Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Carrefour Uses NFC for Faster Shopping


French Supermarket Giant Carrefour Uses NFC and QR Codes for Faster Shopping

carrefour city NFCFrom NFCMe.com Carrefour, a retail giant in France, has launched Mon Panier, a mobile app that lets their customers do their grocery shopping using their mobile phones.  Sounds like it has been done before with Tesco South Korea’s use of QR codes and other copycat mobile shopping campaigns, right?
But the Mon Panier campaign is very different in that it does not use QR codes or near-field communication in virtual store displays.  You do not scan the codes or wave your phones in order to put it onto your shopping cart.  Instead, Mon Panier only lets you pick the items through the app and pay for it.  You would still have to go to the store to pick up the goods.  You use near-field communication or QR codes in order to identify yourself and be able to get your orders.
This service is only available for Carrefour City, the company’s chain of convenience stores. For now, it is live at the St. Lazare outlet, but other sites are following suit in the next months.
This means that you can go grocery shopping in your pajamas, avoid the crowd, and just pay for everything on your smartphones. The grocery’s staff will put together your order for you and you can come collect these after only two hours.
When you collect your order, you enter the Mon Panier kiosk and tap your NFC phone or scan a QR code to inform the staff that you’re there to get your order.  That means that you are in and out of the store in less than five minutes!  The service is free with no delivery or picking charges.  There is also no minimum purchase amount.
This service is good but it would have been greater if the store offered free delivery with the purchases.  This would make it easier
But if you are not interested in the service or you find grocery shopping strangely relaxing, you can still download the app and use its other features.  The Mon Panier mobile app has a store locator that helps people find the outlets nearest to them. It also gives you an alerts and information on the latest promotions, deals and offers.




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