Brazilian retailer Grupo Pão de Açúcar (GPA) has said that it is testing new formats to optimise customer in-store purchasing time.
One initiative, dubbed 'pre-scanning', is currently being tested at a laboratory at Pão de Açúcar Jardim Paulista, in São Paulo.
This sees store employees equipped with a mobile reader approach customers to pre-scan purchases easily and quickly while waiting in line. The operator then starts to register the items, issuing a QR Code to the customer, with which they can pay for their items.
Shop and Go
Another initiative, which is also currently in a test phase at the Jardim Paulista unit, is the Shop and Go format, in which customers can make their purchases as usual at a physical store and request for them to be delivered to their homes within four hours.
Payment is also only made when the consumer receives the order at the requested address.
James Delivery
The retailer also announced the commencement of the James Delivery app in São Paulo.
The Curitiba-based platform will be the official and exclusive delivery platform for GPA's Extra and Pão de Açúcar chain.
Purchased last year by GPA, it is part of the company’s efforts to boost its presence in the online food retail channel. In a statement, GPA said it plans to take James Delivery to 10 more Brazilian cities in the near future, including Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia.
Plant-Based Foods
Meanwhile, GPA has reached an agreement with a Chilean startup for the exclusive distribution of its plant-based food products in Brazil.
NotCo uses artificial intelligence to recreate food normally made with meat or dairy ingredients solely using vegetable components.
CEO Matias Muchnick told Reuters that the company will expand regionally, including Argentina and Mexico, and expects Brazil to become its largest market within a year. Initially, it will ship its products from Chile, but the plan is to produce them locally within four months.
The first product to be launched in Brazil is NotMayo, a chickpea-based mayonnaise that doesn't contain eggs, followed by its vegetable milk NotMilk and its ice cream brand NotIceCream.
NotCo is aiming for a double-digit market share in these three categories in the next three years.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
