The Future of Shopping is Here!
That’s what the billboards boldly claim, anyway. Canada’s first virtual store has arrived in Toronto by way of Korea thanks to online drug store Well.ca and their “mission” to “break down the barriers of online shopping.” After downloading a free app, shoppers browse the wall display designed to look like real store shelves and scan QR codes to add items to their “cart.” After confirming their purchase, the goods are delivered to their homes the next day. Shipping is free. Located in a walkway just outside Union Station, Well.ca’s virtual store is supposed to save busy customers a trip to the actual store and spare them the inconvenience of carrying things. News releases are boasting that the retail landscape has been disrupted.
As a long time retail veteran and closet techno-phobe, I was a little skeptical. Do people actually use those QR code things? Don’t you want to see what you’re buying before you take it home? Are we really so eager to give up those little human interactions with cashiers and sales clerks? Maybe I’m in the minority on this, but sometimes I worry that as we (society) march towards the digitization of everything, we’re gleefully sacrificing some part of our humanity in the name of technological progress. But a lot of people on Twitter seemed really excited.
I wanted to know what people thought about this latest retail innovation and whether or not they were as concerned as I am about the Singularity, so I headed down to Brookfield Place to see if anyone was shopping.
I overheard Aron and Arvin and their friends (who didn’t want their picture taken) talking about the virtual store. Both these fellows have smartphones and use QR codes. They work for a large media company and like to stay on top of these kinds of things. While they currently have no plans to use this particular store, they weren’t opposed to the idea. “There are certain things, like produce, that I wouldn’t buy this way,” Arvin told me, but the lack of physical products on the shelf didn’t bother him. When one of their friends pointed out that she couldn’t use her coupons, Aron pointed that there are always online offers and coupon codes. Everyone agreed that they would never use a virtual store to buy a brand they didn’t already know.
Paul and Sofia are both designers who feel uneasy about the concept. When I first asked what they thought of the virtual store, Sofia blurted out, “It’s terrible.” However she tempered her response a bit. “I guess it’s kind of cool, but are we not going to be able to touch anything anymore? Everything’s just going to be big screens that we point at.”She compared it to e-readers and traditional books, stressing the latter will always be superior despite the convenience of the former.
Paul says he feels bad for the “poor guy who might lose his job.” While Paul has a smart-phone, he said he doesn’t really use QR codes. They weren’t familiar with the theory of technological singularity, although when I explained that it’s essentially the moment machines become smarter than humans, they knew what I was talking about. Skynet, basically. They agreed with my leading questions that this was potentially one small step towards the human race unintentionally creating their own artificially-intelligent overlords. Sofia pointed out that people don’t always think about the technology they use. “What ever’s new and cool, everyone just goes with it.” Paul added that, more than anything, it will probably just make people lazy.
Gordon works in the mobile websites business and drove in from Barrie to check out the space and was very eager to talk with me. He thought this iteration of the virtual store wouldn’t take off for a number of reasons. “Half the population walking through here are men, and they’re not buying Tide or Pampers.” Canadians are so conservative that they’d be afraid they’ll look silly holding their phone up scanning QR codes – a technology he thinks will soon be replaced by “image recognition.” Referring to the QR codes customers use to shop, he said “I bet you dollars to donuts they’re not collecting all the data they could be.” This reminded me that all of my personal information is being stored on a server somewhere and I would be so easy to track down if some malevolent party – android or otherwise – wished to do so. Proving he was more focused than I on the issue at hand, Gordon told me he has a feeling that consumers wouldn’t want to buy the items on offer over the Internet because they recognize the cost of shipping items with a high weight-to-cost ratio would be built into the price tag therefore negating the convenience factor.
But I spotted Carrie using her phone to do just that. She’s a fairly new mom who was buying diapers and wipes. While she wouldn’t use it for products she hadn’t already tried, the convenience of buying everyday products on her commute is a no-brainer. She says she’s used Well.ca to shop before but the virtual store layout is much easier to navigate. She’s not worried about the loss of human interaction either. “I’m not going ask someone at Shoppers if they’ve ever tried these wipes or anything,” she said.”If I’m buying a new piece of technology or something like that, I still want to be able to talk to someone. But not for this kind of stuff.” Over the hour that I spent hanging out in the virtual store, Carrie was the only person I saw actually buying stuff. She admits she’s a “techy” early adopter. Not wanting to upset her, I don’t bring up the fact that she may be unknowingly abetting our future robotic oppressors.
Of everyone I talked to, including some who declined to be named or photographed, the consensus seemed to be that the virtual store was a great idea whose time has come. So long as the prices are competitive, most would happily shop this way. There were a few who didn’t have smartphones and many more who motored through the walkway without paying the display any mind, but those who stopped to look seemed interested and impressed. As well, most people dismissed concerns that in-store retail jobs would be lost saying that they would be replaced by jobs developing, designing and managing the virtual stores. One man I spoke with named Sheilesh told me he thought the virtual store was brilliant and would start shopping once he had done some more research about the company to make sure they were reputable and that his mobile data would be secure. He seemed very intelligent though he did not share my concern about the singularity.
My sense is that there will always be items that some people will not want to buy online. Lots of folks want to touch and see and smell the things they buy before they hand over their money, so perhaps the demise of the bricks and mortar store will be held off for now. But for a growing number of people, the threat of computers overthrowing the human race is not enough of a deterrent to keep them from using a virtual store to buy their deodorant and shampoo.
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Michael Kolberg is a writer, comedian and Philip K. Dick fan who writes for Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @mikeykolberg
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