Barcelona's markets are making good progress in their digitalization process. The pandemic has been a real accelerator of online sales and home deliveries, and now stalls are incorporating new services such as click & collect. Thus, it is now possible to place an order at any market stall and pick it up, without queues or waiting, even when the establishment has closed, as the merchant deposits it in an individual refrigerated locker that keeps food at a temperature of between 2 and 8 degrees.
The Barcelona City Council, through the Municipal Institute of Markets of Barcelona (IMMB), has installed, as a pilot test, these lockers in 6 markets in the city and in 4 B:SM car parks that are also located in markets. The facilities included in this test are Ninot, Sants, Llibertat, Concepció, Lesseps and Provençals; and the car parks are those of La Boqueria, Sant Antoni, Sagrada Família and Guinardó.
According to the Municipal Institute of Markets, this initiative is part of the digitalization plan and will allow orders deposited by merchants to be collected by customers comfortably, quickly and safely. "These are advanced digital, intelligent devices, connected to the Internet and with a technological platform that manages and monitors them," explains the City Council, which wants to progressively extend the service to all markets in the city. The lockers are modular and can have 18, 28 or 38 individual compartments.
These collection points will complement the home delivery services that have played a very important role during the pandemic, as well as the growing number of orders managed through digital channels. It will also be a key delivery point for the future Marketplace of Municipal Markets, the common online sales platform for all stalls that is scheduled to be launched in spring.
The new click & collect service will operate through a web booking portal where merchants or delivery services will reserve lockers either for the same day or for future dates, provided there is availability. The same app will automatically communicate the different statuses of an order's lifecycle, and the message will include the delivery locker number, date, delivery slot, and its location; the collection and deposit codes; and the order status. All communications will be sent by email, and when an order is deposited, an SMS will also be sent to the customer with the collection code.