Probably one of the first, if not the first large trial of a hybrid/physical online shopping is now in Singapore. Justin over at his site alerted us that PayPal has started to pilot this new “Shop and Pay On-the-Go” initiative where you can scan the QR code on advertisement boards in any 15 train stations in Singapore. This, however, requires cameras still (sorry NSF’s!) and not NFC friendly yet.
Anyway, the merchants involved in the pilot test are:
- Ban Choon Marketing
- Charles & Keith
- City Tours
- EpiCentre
- FarEastFlora
- Phillip Wain
- Resorts World Sentosa
- Showbiz.
I really hope it will go beyond just these few merchants and into more varieties (with free delivery) like how Korea does it. Also, it would be great to see NFC being implemented. I must add, that even though I don’t really fancy PayPal much or even at all, the overall positivity of the news is that it seems like merchants are beginning to warm up towards such mobile shopping solutions. Hopefully plenty of merchants will join in this scheme and NFC implemented so that more people get to enjoy this convenience (for our 9900 users in camp).
For those who are excited to try this scheme out, the 15 train stations where the QR code layouts are located are:
- Orchard
- City Hall
- Raffles Place
- Somerset
- Holland Village
- Pasir Ris
- Serangoon
- Tiong Bahru
- Toa Payoh
- Bugis
- Tanjong Pagar
- Esplanade
- Dhoby Ghaut
- Bras Basah
- Choa Chu Kang
Via JustinLee
