Dive Brief:
- Moby, a 24-hour mobile grocery store prototype with no workers or checkout lines, is currently being tested in Shanghai, as reported by Fast Company. The parent company Wheelys anticipates it will be ready to produce and sell the stores by 2018.
- Since it’s on wheels, the store could one day go into food deserts, make deliveries and drive itself to a warehouse to restock.
- Using an app, customers can open the store door and scan food purchases. The app then charges the customers when they leave. The Moby app also lets users track the location of the store and place customized orders to be picked up later.
Dive Insight:
Citizen access to quick and convenient food shopping is growing. Retail giant Amazon was testing the launch of a grocery store without checkout lines, which could possibly play a role in its recently-announced deal to acquire Whole Foods. Additionally, Wal-Mart is introducing blockchain to track food, and of course, there's an abundance of delivery apps and robots to deliver food.
Food deserts are a huge problem for cities around the globe, therefore the concept of a mobile grocery store that can infiltrate where grocers don't want to invest in brick and mortar stores offers tremendous potential for city growth.
Wheelys, a Sweden-based startup, already has experience in this area and has created a pedal-powered, mobile coffee cart. The Moby grocery unit retails around $30,000, making it a much cheaper option than building a typical brick and mortar store, therefore Wheelys' founders think that businesses could be launched by neighbors that come together to bring a unit into their area.
