Swedish-Chinese firm MobyMart is expanding its automated store format in China in collaboration with Shanghai fruit retailer Taoyuanming.
Two stores are operating, one in Hefei and one outside Shanghai. While expansion in the region is the firm’s priority this year, its long-term sights are set on Europe and North America.
According to brand co-founder Per Cromwell, MobyMart initially opened a corner-store-format mobile vending platform for coffee, which evolved into MobyMart, a mobile platform for “vending everything”.
“We found a very visionary fruit retailer in the suburbs of Shanghai, Taoyuanming, and basically they had physical stores but they wanted to have unmanned stores,” said Cromwell.
“We saw that we didn’t actually need to make too many adjustments to our existing system because basically what we had to do was pre-pack all the fruit — we needed to have fixed units and not have people buying by weight … and when we opened it up to the public it was an instant success.”
The store carries around 50 SKUs at a time.
Taoyuanming is reportedly so pleased with the results that two more automated stores are scheduled to open early this year, which may be followed by staffless stores if successful.
The firm’s strategy is to provide a platform to small retailers.
