Barcelona markets to feature smart fridge lockers

Taking a page out of the new courier delivery approach

The municipal website of Barcelona reported that installation of smart fridge lockers has begun at 6 city markets and 4 B:SM car parks linked to other markets as a pilot project. The goal is to reduce crowding and provide more flexibility both to sellers and buyers by introducing the concept of zero waiting for market food purchases. It also makes possible the buying of food items after the markets have closed.

The facilities included in this test are Ninot, Sants, Llibertat, Concepción, Lesseps and Provençals. The car parks are in La Boqueria, Sant Antoni, Sagrada Família and Guinardó markets.

Web platform combining all the city’s markets in one place will appear this spring

This initiative is part of a market digitization plan and consists of the installation of refrigerated lockers, of between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, with individual compartments and a digital interface where merchants can leave ordered items to be collected later comfortably, quickly and safely. These are smart digital lockers, connected to the Internet and featuring a technological platform that manages and monitors them. They will have 18, 28 or 38 individual compartments.

This new initiative will be managed through a booking web portal (called Marketplace, and to be launched in the spring) where retailers or shipping services will book the lockers either on the same day or for future dates, as long as there is availability. In addition, the facilities will have a customer and retailer service that will be operational from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 9 pm and on Saturdays from 9 am to 3 pm.

The same app will automatically communicate the different states of the life cycle of an order and the message will include the delivery cabinet, the date, the delivery track and its location, collection and deposit codes, and order status. All communications will be sent by email and, when an order is placed, an SMS will also be sent to the customer with the collection code.