The idea was to use image recognition and augmented reality technologies to identify products by the packaging and make them interactive. Using the smartphone’s camera, the mobile app “Discover” recognizes over 10,000 products directly from packaging and delivers more than 4,000 recipes and 90,000 consumer reviews from various media channels in augmented reality. In this way, the innovative app bundles all of the Migros platforms directly on the product, turning it into a communication channel. Driven by multi-channel digital technology, the mobile app “Discover” fulfils the consumer’s expectation on product transparency, increases their engagement and enhances the in-store experience.

“Discover” is an easy-to-use app and greatly intuitive, therefore the design is reduced and straightforward. The app is directly connected to the smartphone’s camera and shows various information about – and inspiration around – a product in augmented reality after it has been scanned. It uses Apple’s new programming language Swift as well as Microsoft’s open-source framework ASP.NET Core. Additionally, all core components of the system are cloud-based.

The widespread national and international media coverage – with a reach of 5.2 million in a country with a population of 8.2 million as well as 20,000 scans a day – has strengthened the product’s position. It also saw a 45% increase in mobile traffic on the evaluation platform Migipedia. Recipes were accessed for one out of every five grocery products sold. One out of ten retailer app users use the app to scan the products.

“Discover” allows users to access product information and offers inspiration right at the point of sale – it is revolutionizing the shopping experience.

Consumers want to know exactly what they are buying and consuming. But which information they are precisely looking for depends on their situation. Since Migros, the largest retailer in Switzerland, serves a very broad target audience, the strategy was to bundle various information starting at the product itself. In this way, every consumers expectation on transparency can be fulfilled, no matter whether he or she is looking for information about the nutritional value, fitting recipes or consumer reviews. The approach was therefore to develop a mobile app that uses augmented reality technologies to engage shoppers and to optimise the in-store experience by offering tailored information and inspiration.

With over 1000 stores, Migros is the largest retailer in Switzerland. It offers plenty of information und inspiration around its products to the customers, for example about nutrition values, fitting recipes and consumer reviews. But they are spread on different platforms, making it tedious to benefit from them while shopping in the store. Migros wanted to optimise the customer experience and make it easier to access to the information available. The goals were to improve the transparency and convenience for the customers, to strengthen their loyalty, to increase the traffic on the different platforms and to boost the leading role of Migros as a driver of the digital transformation in Switzerland.