Robert Ilijason Opens First Unmanned App Convenience Store in Sweden

Summary: The store Robert Ilijason opened in January 2016 for residents of the small southern town of Viken is the first unmanned app convenience store in Sweden.

Näraffär, an unmanned convenience store, opens in Viken, Skåne County, southwestern Sweden: KSAT 12 @ksatnews, via Twitter Feb. 29, 2016

Residents of the small southern fishing and seafaring town of Viken are able to buy basic food items, household products and packaged snacks from the first unmanned app convenience store in Sweden.

Robert Ilijason, 39-year-old Information Technology (IT) specialist, bases the ideation of unstaffed app shopping upon a late-night, 20-minute trip to buy his 7-month-old son baby food. He considers that, given the inconvenience for villagers to access suburban and urban convenience stores, “It is incredible that no one has thought of this before.” He describes savings in employee benefits and wages as sufficient to make operating a small store a profitable business opportunity once again in the Swedish countryside. He expects other openings since “My ambition is to spread this idea to other villages and small towns.”

The first unmanned app convenience store, Näraffär (Shopping), furnishes 450 items, such as baby food, canned foods, diapers, household products, milk, sandwich bread, snacks and sweets.

Their cellphones give customers access to the first unmanned app convenience store in Sweden by opening the otherwise locked entrance and by scanning their in-store purchases. Customers only have to register for the service in order to download the appropriate app and to pay for their purchases upon receipt of monthly invoices.

A text message alert is sent to Ilijason, as owner-operator, if the front entrance does not close within eight seconds or if there are attempted break-ins.

Non-stocking of medical drugs and tobacco joins countryside prohibitions against convenience store sales of alcohol to discourage break-ins and robberies.

The first unmanned app convenience store in Sweden keeps ongoing records of behaviors and inventories by dispersal of six surveillance cameras throughout the 480-square-foot (45-square-meter) space.

Drivers leave deliveries of food items and of household products since Ilijason states that “I live nearby and can always run down here” to restock shelves.

The concept of unstaffed app shopping makes more sense, since the store’s opening in January 2016, to younger than to older residents among the 4,200 townspeople.

Raymond Arvidsson, one of the store owner-operator’s friends, notes that doing shopping in less than a minute means “No queues. Quick in, quick out. I like.”

In-town, 24-hour access offers convenient, safe shopping for old and young alike even though 21st-century technology overwhelms some elderly residents.

Tuve Nilsson, 75-year-old townsperson, provides perspectives from a 40-year residence since 1976 in Viken, picturesque harbor locality whose name means “creek” or “inlet” in Old Norse. He qualifies incentives for other shop owners to return to the countryside as one of the attractions of the first unmanned app convenience store in Sweden. He reveals that, as to replacing employed staff with phone apps, “But if they can manage this (technology), I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t understand it.”

Ilijason suggests that older townspeople will feel more uncomfortable with face-recognition or fingerprint scanners, but perhaps less so with credit card readers that some banks employ. He thinks that their comfort and their patronage warrant opening the store to one-person staffing for a few hours daily.

Näraffär is located on Bygatan, main road through Viken; view of Bygatan, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008, 15:25: Magnus Bäck, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Näraffär, an unmanned convenience store, opens in Viken, Skåne County, southwestern Sweden: KSAT 12 @ksatnews, via Twitter Feb. 29, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/ksatnews/status/704352581301055488

Näraffär is located on Bygatan, main road through Viken; view of Bygatan, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008, 15:25: Magnus Bäck, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Viken,_Bygatan_(Feb_2008).jpg

For further information:

Associated Press. 29 February 2016. "Unmanned Store Opens Doors for Sweden Village." YouTube.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB0ljPrCZ3g

Iryna. 8 January 2016. “Unmanned Store Is Now Running in Sweden.” Øresund Startups.
Available @ http://oresundstartups.com/unmanned-store-is-now-running-in-sweden/

KSAT 12 @ksatnews. 29 February 2016. "Unmanned convenience store opens in Sweden." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/ksatnews/status/704352581301055488

Lewontin, Max. 29 February 2016. “Sweden Opens Unmanned 24-Hour Convenience Store (+Video).” The Christian Science Monitor > Technology.
Available @ http://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2016/0229/Sweden-opens-unmanned-24-hour-convenience-store-video

“Näraffär.” Viken.
Available @ http://viken.naraffar.se

Olsen, Jan M. 29 February 2016. “In Sweden’s 1st Unmanned Food Store, All You Need is a Phone.” Microsoft >  News > Technology.
Available @ http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/in-swedens-1st-unmanned-food-store-all-you-need-is-a-phone/ar-BBq8Ubo?OCID=ansmsnnews11

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Available @ http://www.kesq.com/news/unmanned-convenience-store-opens-in-sweden/38251494

“Unmanned Store Runs on HonorCode, Smartphones.” USA Today> Videos > News > Humankind > 29 February 2016.
Available @ http://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2016/02/29/81102804/