Beiruting News

Homeplus, which bills the shopping experiment as a world first, offers 500 items including food, electronics, office supplies and toiletries at its "store" at Seolleung station in the south of the city of 10 million.

Seven pillars and six platform screen doors have been plastered with images of life-size store shelves filled with goods - such as milk, apples, a bag of rice or school backpacks - which each carry a small barcode.

"This will help increase our sales via smartphones, which will be the next big sales generator," the spokeswoman told AFP.

Homeplus already operates an online store for smartphone users which garners modest sales of 30 million won ($28,000) a week, but hopes it can get a big boost from some 200,000 people who pass through the station daily.