Overview

Online purchasing of groceries is here to stay, with grocery executives expecting eCommerce to more than double in the next 3-5 years. Instead of focusing on protecting in-stores sales, grocers must focus on supporting business both online and in-stores through unified commerce strategies. (McKinsey, State of Grocery North America). Grocer-owned mobile applications allow organizations to maintain the relationship with their consumers while evolving their eCommerce strategy to complement the benefits provided by selling through large eCommerce marketplaces.

The Grocer Scan and Go app offers a seamless shopping experience for consumers - both in-store and online - using a Mendix Native app.

Key capabilities: 

• Convenience  
• Manage your account details and preferences in-app
• View detailed store information
• Save time and money
• Browse product offers and specials
• Access detailed product information by scanning the barcode
• Avoid queuing by using the built-in scan and go functionality
• Smoother in-store shopping when using app to plan ahead 
• Create in-app shopping lists from the comfort of your home
• Flexible fulfilment options (in-store shopping, pick-up, delivery) 
• Either use the app in-store or place orders online for pick-up or delivery and checkout using Stripe
• Discover new items with product recommendations

Why use low-code to build this type of app? 

• Speed to market and lowering risk: Retailers need to experiment to address key challenges; they cannot wait for the cost of innovation to decrease or follow the paths of others.
• Differentiation: Retailers can quickly customize this native mobile app to add functionality based on their unique program offerings, like incorporating fuel points, cash back incentives, pharmacy functions, photo options, and more.
• Native mobile capabilities: User friendly experiences are required to improve the mobile grocery shopping experience (build iOS or Android apps without specific skillsets, reduce the cost of ownership and maintainability of native mobile apps).
• Integrations: Data is required from different systems and areas of the business (product information and pricing, promotions, customer information, inventory levels, carrier availability) to meet business and customer needs.
• Legacy Modernization: Retailers can change backend systems (payment gateway, systems of record, etc.) without impacting the customer experience.

Documentation

Description

The Grocer Scan & Go app is a customer-facing app that allows customer of a grocer to:

• Browse the product catalogue
• Search for products
• View product details
• Scan product barcodes for information
• Create shopping lists
• Scan products in store and add them to the basket
• Order groceries online and pay with Stripe Checkout or Yapily Payments
• Manage account information
• View detailed store information

Typical usage scenario

• How to handle large amounts of data in an online-first native app
• How to implement safe and secure checkout functionality
• How to create a seamless online and in-store shopping experience for customers

Features and limitations

• We've tested the apk (for Android), but we have not tested the IPA (for iOS)
• This app demonstrates the art of the possible, please use it as inspiration

Dependencies 

• Mendix Studio Pro 9.18.4
• Make it Native 9

Installation 

Download the mpk and import it into Mendix Studio Pro. Make sure to configure a 256-bit Encryption Key in the EncryptionKey Constant, otherwise the app won't run.

To use all of the functionality that this app offers:

• Sign up for Stripe Checkout and generate an API key for a test environment. Use this API key as the value for constant:  StripeConnector.APIKey. You can find more information about the Stripe Checkout connection here. You can sign up for an account with Stripe here.
• Sign up for Yapily payments and generate a value for the constants YapilyConnector.Username and YapilyConnector.Password. You can find more information on Yapily payments and how to use the modelo sandbox here.
• Configure an Email Connector Service Account by setting a username and password in the constants EmailConnectorExtention.EmailAccount_Password and EmailConnectorExtension.EmailAccount_Username

Configuration 

Demo data

The app comes with a set of demo data that will enable you to run the app and start using it. The demo data is generated in the after start-up microflow when you run the app for the first time. You can also reset the demo data at any point and start with a clean database.

Master data

• Edit intro slide content
• Add and edit products.
• We pull the products from the open food facts database. You can add products to the local database by entering a barcode on the product overview page or add a product manually if it wasn't found in the database.
• Add and edit stores
• Add and edit amenities