Virtual Shopping

Virtual shopping is shopping that is not physically existing but made as simulation of a shopping mall.Virtual shopping first opened in Korea, Seolleung subway station, in 2011.

Homeplus Smart Virtual Shopping was launched by Tesco. “It chose Seolleung station for its trial store because over 200,000 commuters use it every day”.

Virtual Shopping @Seolleung subway station

How does virtual shopping work? First of all, costumers download the Home Plus app. Then, costumers enter their personal information and their credit card information. Next, customers scan the barcode of products they wanted to buy and those products will be in their shopping list. Finally, pay for the products after reviewing them on the shopping list.

It is convenient for commuters to use virtual shopping as they not only save the time by not going to the grocery shop and waiting to pay at the checkout which usually have long queue but they also save themselves the hassle of carrying heavy and bulky groceries. Tesco also launched a virtual grocery store at Gatwick airport. It will allow travellers to shop for their grocery while waiting for their plane as deliveries can be booked up to three weeks in advance. Thus, travellers can put their mind at ease knowing that there will be new supply for their empty fridge. If travellers prefer to shop after their return trip, they can do so at the airport. 
There are also benefits for managers as with virtual shopping, there is no need to rent for stores and the number of employees needed have been reduced as virtual store do not need cashiers and store supervisors. Therefore, Home plus can invest their revenue on other things that will benefit the company. Another benefit is that the cost from transferring goods from the warehouse to all retail stores and stocking the stores is eliminated. 
For the futuristic view, according to the Korea Communications Commission, the number of smartphone users is expected to skyrocket in the latter half of this year.  By all means, it won’t replace stores.  Virtual shopping is similar to online shopping, but even better, and since online shopping has lasted this long (a little under 20 years), there is no reason to believe that virtual shopping will be successful in the future.  This idea will definitely expand outside of South Korea just because people in other countries look forward to virtual shop as well.

MIS is the development and use of information systems that help businesses achieve their goals and objectives.  Without people, virtual shopping would be useless because no one would gain any benefits.  In other words, nothing would be efficient and effective.  Therefore, it is fair to say that people is the most critical part of an information system.  In fact, information systems are not just computers and data.

Virtual shopping is a B2C process because in this case, Home plus is selling products to the general public through the catalog displays utilizing shopping cart software.  People are buying products (via the web from web retailers to web customers).   B2C almost always involves customers typing information into an order screen and that is what people need to do after they have collected all the products they want to buy in the virtual shopping cart.