French supermarkets focus on home scanners

Almost simultaneously, three French retailers will launch a scanner to allow shoppers to scan products at home, which are then automatically added to a shopping list. This will make eCommerce even easier. 

Greater order convenience

Contrary to Jef Colruyt, the French hypermarkets and supermarkets believe there is a sustainable eCommerce model for the food industry. With their Drive formula, our southern neighbors have already been the European front runners for several years now. With this new move, they increase their focus on the consumer’s order convenience. 

Thanks to a handy home scanner, customers can create a shopping list more easily and it is clear the French have been inspired by the Amazon Dash scanner. 

Three types

Chronodrive, group Auchan‘s eCommerce division, launched its Izy order service in March 2015. It uses a disc-shaped scanner connected to a smartphone application through a WiFi connection. Consumers can scan packages at home and these are immediately added to a shopping cart. The Izy scanner looks relatively flashy and has a handy magnet to attach it to the fridge door. 

Intermarché Drive has begun trials with API, a home scanner with a more conventional design, but also linked to the retailer’s app, similar to Izy. It will evaluate this first trial run in March.

 
In the meantime, Carrefour Drive also announced it will launch Pikit, a scanner connected to a mobile app and an account on carrefourdrive.fr. All three scanners give the customer an option to dictate groceries, but they all carry a price tag. Izy costs 29.9 euro, Pikit will cost 59.9 euro and API’s price tag has not yet been revealed.

What about here? 

It is remarkable to see that Carrefour’s scanner in France is not the same one as its Belgian division has used for a while, namely the Connected Kitchen scanner. Even more so, the Connected Kitchen scanner looks eerily similar to Intermarché France’s API scanner.

Carrefour Belgium says its testing phase has shown that the scanner needs a few adjustments, which means that an implementation all across the country will not happen anytime soon.