Supermarket offers e-commerce style payment and delivery services

An Asian online company brings robots and e-commerce to its first retail store

Spotted: Singapore retailer honestbee is the latest online retailer to bring e-commerce services to a physical retail store. The 60,000 square foot space called habitat is a grocery store and eatery. The aim is to make shopping fun and the paying and collecting part, as easy as it is online. With ten items or fewer, shoppers can scan their own items using an app and leave with their purchases. With more than ten items, shoppers can leave their purchases in a trolley and the store — a robot in this case — will scan and pack them. Like with online purchases, they are delivered to your door, or there’s an option to pick them up at a collection point.

Customers enter the space by scanning a QR code given when they download the app, which charges all transactions to a shopper’s online account. The first habitat supermarket opened in Singapore in October.