AisleOne iPad app aims to shake up online shopping

An Australian-made iPad app with high-resolution graphics could transform how customers shop online

An Australian-made iPad app sporting high-resolution graphics could transform how customers shop online for food and groceries.

The AisleOne app lets users scroll through shopping aisles just as they would stroll through them in a store. There are no lists, just the swiping of goods from shelves into a virtual shopping trolley and then on to the check-out.

The app is expected to go live today. It is the brainchild of a former Coles executive Keith Louie, a mechanical engineer who spent five years in production management and 10 years in management consulting, mostly in supply chain logistics. Mr Louie’s CV includes running online shopping at Coles for six years and running central operations at Target, Myer, Officeworks and Kmart.

He’s now chief executive of national online retailer Aussie Farmers Direct and has produced what he says is a world-first: making online shopping visual and intuitive.

Aussie Farmers Direct is already a bustling national business that delivers Australian-grown fresh produce ordered via a web portal.

It has more than 100,000 active customers across five mainland capitals and several regional centres. Mr Louie said 250 franchisees locally delivered groceries up to twice weekly after being ordered online.

It offers about 300 products including milk, bread, eggs, dairy, fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood, delicatessen items, beverages, pre-packaged meals and pet food.

The company originally was a milk delivery business when it was set up 10 years ago.

Screen shot of AisleOne app. You use your finger to drag produce into your shopping trolley.

It uses local farms and suppliers such as bakeries and doesn’t charge for deliveries. It delivers fresh Australian produce to-the-door in chilled eskies. Mr Louie said all products were fresh. There were no frozen foods at this time.

He said the company was especially proud of its free range egg standard of no more than 1500 birds per hectare.

He said the iPad app represented a transition from a traditional text-based ordering system “to one that was entirely visual”. “I’ve been in online grocery for 10 years now, and if you watch people in a supermarket, they are primarily visual. The physical shopping experience is to walk the aisles and use visual prompts to both generate and satisfy demand.”

Mr Louie’s challenge was to replicate that process in the app. After logging in or choosing to shop as a guest, the only text you see is a single menu across the top of the screen of food types with extra tabs for weekly specials and new items. Shoppers need to provide a postcode so that virtual aisles are stocked with items available in that area.

Shopping involves swiping across high-resolution images of aisles stacked with items and dropping them into a trolley. Alternately users can press an item to get full details before ordering.

Mr Louie said Aussie Farmers Direct had engaged Sydney developer Gomeeki to build the app, which includes some basic gaming. For example, shoppers could break eggs if they swiped them downwards but missed the trolley. More “gamification” was likely in future, he said. He said the most challenging part was integrating the ordering back end.

He said the company had been approached by other retailers wanting to use the iPad app for their business. Online wine retailer Get Wines Direct was aboard and others would follow. The company had its own tech team working on the project.

Mr Louie said Aussie Farmers Direct in the past had made available a text-based phone app for ordering but it wasn’t visual in form like the new iPad app is. He said an iPhone version of the aisle shopping experience would be ready in two months and one for Android tablets and phones possibly by year’s end.