Municipal markets go digital with an online shop

The city’s 43 markets are to get a new virtual showcase, an online shop allowing over 2,000 establishments to display and sell their products and services. The platform will facilitate access to stalls using the new sales and support channel, with the possibility of improving the way their product catalogue is managed and making use of an online payment service.

23/10/2020 15:27 h

Ajuntament de Barcelona

The new sales platform will be available in the spring of 2021 and accessible from the new Mercats de Barcelona website. It will also be available from a new purpose-built app allowing online shoppers to select one of three options for receiving their orders.

  • home delivery
  • at the market stall, during their usual opening hours
  • from lockers outside markets at any time of day

The new online shop is the star measure in the plan to digitalise systems, which has a budget of 2.8 million euros to update sales and management systems and improve the response to peoples’ new needs in terms of hours and proximity. The plan also entails:

  • Developing a system to control capacities and gauge the flow of people at markets, taking decisions on the functioning of each building in line with needs and the flow of customers.
  • Creating a centralised data system to gauge and analyse consumption and respond to people’s needs.
  • Installing giant screens at each market to promote products, services and activities.
  • Equipping buildings with new sensors for climate control, electrics, fire and break-ins, to enhance security and comfort and detect and respond quickly to anything unusual.

The digitalisation and updating of sales systems is the next step after an intense remodelling process for market buildings, carried out over the last four years and involving an investment of 100 million euros.

New logo for the city’s markets

The plan is accompanied by a new logo for the Municipal Institute of Barcelona Markets which seeks to strengthen the connection between the singularity of each market and its role in the community, with a strong network of forty facilities.

FEMM, the new association for all market traders in Barcelona

The new era involves strengthening the joint work of the city’s 43 markets. In this respect, not only is the way the IMMB works being updated to build a consolidated network, but the two existing market traders’ associations will now merge to become the Federation of Municipal Markets (FEMM), representing the city’s two thousand market stalls.

 

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