The Barcelona metro launches virtual stores

Two Barcelona metro stations, La Sagrera and Diagonal, They have launched virtual shopping points where you can buy using an application installed on your mobile phone, baptized as Bon Dia. With this new project, an initiative of Metropolitan Transports of Barcelona (TMB) y Pickbe, users can purchase, scanning QR codes, Privalia products and services, Groupalia, Ulabox, Book House and Pharma Promotions.

Two of the Barcelona metro interchange stations with the highest volume of passengers, Diagonal and La Sagrera, have opened the first virtual stores to buy all types of products and services online by using the mobile phone. These are four large wall screens with QR codes on each of the 32 Offers that are displayed simultaneously and are renewed after a few minutes. These codes are captured by an application available for iPhone and Android. The client does not have to decide at that moment. After taking the code, you can meditate and close the purchase, what you will receive at home, while riding the subway or when you arrive at your work or residential destination.

This is a project shared by Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) and the company Pickbe, an innovative startup in mobile e-commerce belonging to the group Inspirit Group, who have explained that the new channel offers “important and exclusive discounts” to suburban users. Initially this virtual store works with the products of the Privalia e-commerce firms, Groupalia, Ulabox, Book House and Pharma Promotions.

Pickbe is a startup whose mission is to promote mobile shopping and its benefits in the new generation of online buyers. Directed by entrepreneurs Julio García and Carlos Farrerons, Pickbe was born within the Inspirit Group, the incubator and accelerator of technological projects led by Dídac Lee. Pickbe proposes a new purchasing method based on mobility using digital media as points of sale and the smartphone as a tool to purchase products.

Users of the two metro stations where the Bon Dia project begins, virtual stores will be able to buy whatever interests them, once you have downloaded the application for free and capturing the QR code located next to the product shown on the screen. Pickbe brings greater efficiency, making transfers and waiting times a shopping opportunity in places where until now it was not possible to buy. In addition to being able to make purchases through the metro's virtual stores, In the same application, users have a wide range of products depending on their location., with priority for those closest to the place where you are.

Pioneering initiative

The first deputy mayor and president of Metropolitan Transport of Barcelona (TMB), Joaquim Forn, has pointed out that for TMB participation in the virtual stores project is a new opportunity to take advantage of technologies for the benefit of citizens and also opens a new way to provide complementary income for the financing of metropolitan public transport..

For your part, the CEO of the Inspirit group and president of the Pickbe company, which also gives name to the apps, Dídac Lee has assured that mobile electronic commerce is a rising trend in the new technology sector and has expressed confidence that this newly created company will overcome the challenges posed to it..

Pickbe CEO, Julio Garcia, He explained that today they started with two purchase points, one with four screens in the Diagonal lobby and another with one screen, in La Sagrera, and that the intention is to install others, although there is no calendar. Both the expansion of points and the exclusive offers that will be put on sale on their screens will be marked by the millions of users who pass through these exchangers every month., according to García.