Commuters could soon be able to do their shopping on the way to work while waiting for a train on a station platform. A 'virtual supermarket' consisting of posters of shelves stocked with goods pasted on platform walls is set to be introduced at London Underground stations.

Passengers 'shop' by scanning QR - Quick Response - codes of the items they want to buy using their smartphones. These goods are later delivered to their home address.

Supermarket giant Tesco successfully trialled the hi-tech store in a South Korean subway station and there are now plans to bring the concept to Britain.

Irene Lam, spokeswoman for Cheil Worldwide, the global marketing agency that helped develop the store, said: 'In Seoul, everyone is glued to their smartphones.

'Online shopping is a given and everyone is extremely busy, working very long hours. So this conceptabsolutely made sense.'

Last month, Tesco's Korean arm Home Plus transformed Seoul's Hangangjin Station into a 'virtual supermarket' by pasting posters of stocked shelves onto platform walls.

The trial boosted the retailer's online sales by 130 per cent and online members by 76 per cent, claimed Cheil.

Trade magazine The Grocer reported that the trial was so successful that it is now being extended to other Seoul subway stations next month, with a view to rolling the format out across South Korea within two years.

And now the futuristic shopping experience is coming to Britain, according to experts.

'The time is absolutely right for this in the UK,' said Simon Goodall, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi X.

'This isn't about specific places - subway stations or whatever. This is about bringing the store to the people if the people won't come to the store.

'It will be down to individual retailers to think about how this can work for their brands.'

(Read by Christine Mallari. Christine Mallari is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)