Safe Market

Context

With the arrival of covid-19 most of the world was put to a stop into a confinement. That’s when the global grad show in Dubaï decided to make a call to find ways the enhanced the efficiency of home quarantine. The first point was to discover and define the problems of the everyday life of people that were confined. In order to do that we created a mindmap of every problems that were reported to us from our interviews of confined people and that we could observe ourselves.

From this mind map, we highlighted three main problems :

1) Groceries : Everyone needs to go grocery shopping but it a place of high risk of contamination. People tend to be in close proximity and if they handle the same product there is a risk of transfer of the virus. 2) Hospitals : When we started this research the working conditions in hospitals were really bad with shortages of basics supplies such as mask, gloves,.. 3) Work : With the confinement, a lot of people had to adapt to a new way of working from home. This adaptation wasn’t easy to get used to for everybody.

After much discussion and debating, we decided with the team to work on the problem of how to improve the grocery shopping experience while reducing the risk of contamination.

Vision of the future

We’ve been working on an initiative solution for the grocery stores problems in quarantine. With the social distancing in place due to the corona virus, people can not go grocery shopping whenever they want like they used to. With the mesures, the number of customers in the shops at the same time is limited, the time they spend in the shop is limited too. People still wants to go themselves grocery shopping instead of being delivered, they like to see the products they buy an have infos about them. In quarantine, it’s also a way for people to have a social life outside their house.

Problem framing

The risks of infections are great because the coronavirus is very volatile and contagious. It is transmitted particularly well on contact surfaces in common areas and public places, such as cadis, baskets, product packaging on shelves in supermarkets. The industries are at a standstill and are preparing for a total quarantine, they are taking much more than necessary on the shelves, because they are afraid of a shortage. Unfortunately, they are the ones who create it by doing this.

Solution

To tackel this problem, we decided to focus on the interaction between the customers and the products inside the shop. We created an ecosystem that works with an app and a physical concept store. To create a distance between the customers and the products, the solution we found is a NEW MARKET place system with AUTOMATIC DISTRIBUTORS to replace the shelves of the grocery stores. So the customers can see the products and choose them but without touching all of them before choosing it. Safe Market is a new way to do your shopping with less contact as possible. With an application for your store, connected with the automatic distributors.

With the increased measures reducing the number of people allowed to enter the shops at the same time, we created an app that allows to find the nearest shop to you and get all the necessary informations (opening hours, number of people inside,…)

The application and the QR code system for every use in the shop, allow to having as less contacts as possible. The customers scan with their phone at the entry, it allows the shop to regulate the number of persons entering the shop.

Considering the importance of avoiding contact between people and products, we put in place a store where vending machines take over the classic and outdated shelves. The customer walks around the shop, scanning the QR code on the vending machines and selecting the quantity of the products he needs with the app, and the items are dropped automatically in his cart after beeing sanitized by UV light. When he’s done, he simply pays with the app again before leaving the shop with his groceries. The employees can then manage better the stock of the shop, as they know instantly what the customers buy.

Discover how Safe Market distributors work in video: https://youtu.be/NsLm1a18EGc

Conclusion

After a user survey and further analysis of the problematic we tackled and the solution we brought to it, we realized that most people are afraid to go grocery shopping during the pandemia. 83% of the supermarket clients, don’t trust the supermarket for the disinfection of their products, half the people clean their products when they get home. Another analysis, is that the customers are fearing the market concept is an over robotisation design To go further in the process of having less

missing out of products during this pandemia in the supermarket and groceries.

89% of the people interviewed would be reassured if they knew that their products hadn’t been touched by another client.

We asked people what they were thinking about our safe market concept as a solution to their fears. The fact that the app would allow them to wait less time in front distributors system, they would still be able to see the products before buying it. On the employees part it’s a relief, as the stock management would be easier and that, thanks to the QR code system, they would easily manage the number of people in the shop.

On the other hand, here is a more critical analysis as no concept is foolproof. Our safe and it’s very costly in energy. It’s also harder to use for older people who are not connected yet to technologies. of the shop and at the check out is a big plus. With the

contacts, we could have thought about an automatisation of shopping carts too.