Avec box: shop night and day at the ETH Zurich Hönggerberg campus

On Tuesday, 17 September 2019, an avec box will open its doors at the ETH Zurich Hönggerberg campus. The new, cashless Valora convenience store, which was launched at Zurich main station just under two months ago, will be located on the ETH campus with 24-hour opening. Access to the store, purchase and payment are via the avec app.

The avec box will undergo a second test phase from 17 September to 10 November 2019 at the ETH Zurich Hönggerberg campus. The cashless convenience store will offer an extra and extremely convenient shopping option to the 900 campus residents plus the approximately 12,000 students, lecturers and other employees at Hönggerberg: the avec box is open 24 hours from Monday to Sunday for shoppers to visit at their leisure.

avec box offers a tried-and-tested range with fresh food to eat on the go, everyday food items and the most important household products. The avec app acts as your digital key to the shop and shopping guide: access to the store, goods selection via scanning and payment all in one. The avec app also enables shopping in avec X, the Valora innovation laboratory and Zurich main station. For test purposes, it is now also possible there to pay via self-checkout cash registers during the day and in the evening.

Other roll-out experiences

In April 2019, Valora opened its first avec box, Switzerland's most modern convenience store, at Zurich main station. Moreover, Valora received valuable customer feedback during the two-week test phase. Valuable feedback is now also being gathered at the Hönggerberg site and it will be used to improve the shopping experience still further. The findings will also be rolled out to other regions and applied to the first stationary avec box at Wetzikon station. It is scheduled to open in late autumn 2019.

Precursor to the Scan & Go app

In 2016, Valora and ETH Zurich collaborated to enable new technology-based shopping experiences. Valora developed the Scan & Go app in cooperation with the academic research network 'Auto-ID labs'. Valora tested the app at five sites at Zurich main station between 2016 and 2018 to gauge customer acceptance of mobile self-checkout solutions as an alternative to traditional checkout solutions. The app enables shoppers to scan products independently and pay via the credit card stored on the app. More information about the «Auto-ID Labs» research activities in the fields of retail and next generation Internet of Things technologies can be found at www.autoidlabs.ch.

More information about avec box and detailed explanations about registration, use and data privacy can be found at box.avec.ch.