By Kevin Chen, posted Oct 24, 2012 at 8:07 AM, 552 views,

China Biggest Online Retailer Launches 3D Virtual Supermarkets (Video)

Just imagine how it will look like if several people walk around blank city spaces with their eyes focusing on their cellphone screens, looking for something ? This is an new online shopping idea proposed by the biggest supermarket e-commerce site in China. Yihaodian is the first Chinese company introducing virtual shopping to China mobile users, now there is another new creation thought to be an upgraded version of QR code shopping. With the help of Augmented Reality (AR) technology and smartphone camera function, customers can locate the 3D virtual store as marked on the phone screen. To QR code shopping experience, AR means it will be even more virtualize …

Yihaodian has already launched the new project in Beijing. The company is also planning to set up 1000 virtual supermarkets at Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The new virtual supermarkets will be about 1,200 square meters in size stocking about 1,000 items which refresh automatically every day. As seen in an official video clip which helps to explain the scheme, the presentation involves a bunch of customers running around with mobile phones on their hand as if they are using mobile handset navigation app. When customers walk towards the virtual store, it will see products displayed on the screen just like actual physical products displayed on the shelves.

So, what does this new service differ from regular online shopping ? It’s experiencing the fast and convenience of online shopping with the beat of relatively normal act of walking around a store. In a word, we can pick up products just like picking them from the shelves in the brick-and-mortar rather than making several clicks on a website or within an app. It adds the walking experience ingredient to the regular online shopping. How will this bold shopping experience go ? It looks fun to use but not so practical, the whole experience is like treasure hunting for ‘virtual hotspot’.

SOURCE: Tencent, SINA Tech (Chinese translated), Shanghaiist