Digital Platform Inflyter Enables Departure Duty-Free Shopping And Pick-Up On Arrival

France-based airport retail and duty-free ordering platform, Inflyter, is expanding its presence in airports having first debuted at Beirut-Rafic Hariri Airport in 2018 with global duty-free operator Aer Rianta International. The latest placement of its smart lockers is in Lima’s Jorge Chávez International in partnership with Lagardère Travel Retail and Lima Airport Partners in Peru.

Inflyter’s app allows a traveler to order their duty-free goods ahead of getting to the airport. They can pay for their purchases in-app and collect at the store or, in the case of the Peru project, on return.

At Jorge Chávez International—currently in expansion mode and seeing a strong traffic rebound— Inflyter’s smart lockers give passengers the option to buy products via the app or in the departure shop on their way out of the country, and pick up their purchases when they return to Peru.

Just like Amazon’s
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smart lockers, which are widely available in several countries, Inflyter’s automated machines feature an interactive touchscreen to access the items. Passengers enter a pin or scan the barcode printed on their purchase receipt. They must also scan their boarding pass and passport, to ensure they have traveled outside the country to qualify for a duty-free purchase.

The locker—positioned outside the Aelia duty-free store (Aelia is one of Lagardère Travel Retail’s fascias) in the arrivals hall—automatically opens the relevant door so customers can collect their products.

Will conversion rates rise?

Though it’s early days, France-based Lagardère is confident that this alternative shopping method will “increase conversion rates and potentially reach new clients,” meaning younger, digital-native air travelers like Gen Z whose numbers will top those of Millennials before the end of the decade.

By not transporting products to their destinations, passengers have less to carry and that, theoretically, can also cut fuel use on flights if this shopping habit is taken up en masse. A paper published in the Journal of Airport Management found that duty-free products taken onto aircraft increased aircraft weight and fuel burn “and are a primary source of carbon emissions for duty-free retailers.”

Following the launch of Inflyter in 2015 by founder and CEO Wassim Saadé, the platform was awarded a six-month placement on the X-Up accelerator program at the École Polytechnique in France, winning the school’s X-Grant prize two years later due to its growth potential.

The startup then joined the established Agoranov Incubator in Paris on a two-year placement before London-based Collinson Group—a $1.3 billion travel experiences and loyalty business which owns Priority Pass—invested in the company via a Series A funding round in 2019.

On the latest move with Lagardère, Saadé said that digitally savvy, mass affluent, frequent travelers want to shop “but prefer to spend their time at the airport in a lounge.” Julien Debray, head of digital at Lagardère Travel Retail added: “One of the pillars of our digital strategy is to reach out to more travelers before they travel, to offer them innovative services with real added value, and also to provide more online visibility for our brands and our offers.”

Automated duty-free vending

Lagardère Travel Retail has previously worked with Inflyter, launching what the startup claimed was “the world’s first automated duty-free retail proposition” at Geneva Airport in Switzerland at the end of 2021. The service was essentially a digital vending machine offering travelers a fully digital duty-free shopping experience 24/7.

Another travel retailer, Hudson in the United States (owned by Dufry) also launched automated airport vending during the pandemic, selling higher-end products like branded sunglasses, toys, and lifestyle items that would typically be found in the retail stores.

Travelers flying into Geneva Airport could order, pay and collect duty-free items in minutes, via a fully digital platform using a touch-screen menu of the bestselling duty-free products. The Inflyter sales pitch was that its service could convert high-traffic airport zones into self-service, revenue-generating spaces where physical stores would not generally be commercially viable.

Travel and age verification checks are made using an integrated scanner for boarding passes, passports, and identity cards. Once payment is made, the relevant compartment doors automatically open, customers retrieve their items, and the associated customs documentation and receipts are issued.

The tie-up with Lagardère Travel Retail means that, as well as expansion into South America, Inflyter’s platform has now been extended to eight European airports: Rome, Warsaw, Prague, Nice, Geneva, London Luton, London City, and Luxembourg, according to the e-commerce player.