The nation’s first online-to-offline (O2O) postal shopping station was officially opened at a post office on Minsheng E Road in Taipei yesterday.
Chunghwa Post allowed reporters to try the O2O shopping system following a ceremony in the morning.
Equipped with two large touch screens, the station allows consumers to tap on the products they are interested in buying and read the product information.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Paymants can be made with cash or the mobile payment system Taiwan Pay.
Before making a purchase, consumers can see if they can pick up the product at the post office counter on the same day.
Should they have to wait for a few days for the product to arrive, they can then choose to have the product delivered to their home or deposited at an iPostbox.
Each consumer is to receive one product sample as a welcome gift when they sign up as a member of the online shopping service Postal Mall (郵政商城), the company said, adding that they would also be given a QR code.
To pick up the gift, consumers would need to visit a postal shopping station at a post office.
The machines operate in the same way as a vending machine for snacks. Consumers simply let the machine scan the QR code, find the product sample from the touch screen and tap on the product.
The machines dispense facial masks, small bottles of shampoo, skincare products, crackers, mixed nuts and other products.
The stations are equipped with cameras to help collect data on consumers, including their gender and the amount of time they spent looking at a certain product, Chunghwa Post E-Commerce Office director Lin Cheng-feng (林青豊) said.
The data would help the company rearrange the display of products, he said.
The touch screen also has a facial recognition system, Lin said, adding that it would help the company notify consumers about products they might be interested in buying.
There are 1,300 post offices nationwide and the stations would bridge the gap between the real world and the online world of Post Mall, he said.
The stations would help raise the percentage of post office users who make transactions online, he said, adding that it would give station users incentives to shop online later.
“On-site shoppers are given points when they spend a certain amount of money. They can then use the accumulated points to get discounts when they shop online,” he said.
The company’s aim is to raise the revenue generated by Post Mall from NT$325 million to NT$380 million (US$10.93 million to US$12.78 million), he said, adding that it has set a goal of increasing the number of Post Mall members by 10,000 each year.
In the initial phase, the goal set for station users would be between 300 and 500 daily, he said.
The company plans to install 20 O2O stations to help raise online shopping revenue by at least NT$100 million each year, he said.
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