My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: How GraceKennedy Hi-Lo Upgrade heralds GK MPay Amazon-like Retail in Jamaica

Sunday, March 18, 2018

How GraceKennedy Hi-Lo Upgrade heralds GK MPay Amazon-like Retail in Jamaica


One day in the future, shopping at Hi-Lo Store can be done online. But if you decide to go to a Hi-Lo Store, you may find the express line is a bit different!

GraceKennedy, not satisfied with their Hi-Lo Stores, have plans to introduce self-checkout machines as reported in the article “Self-checkout for Hi-Lo?” published Wednesday, March 14, 2018 by Karena Bennett, The Jamaica Observer.
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GK Group CEO Don Wehby made this announcement at an investor briefing on Thursday 8th of March 2018.

GraceKennedy is predicting that with the right capital investment and training customer will like the idea of shopping online from a Hi-Lo Store by the end of 2018 as reported in my blog article entitled “How GraceKennedy Hi-Lo Online e-commerce features MPay and Courier delivery”. 

Already they've renovated the following locations:

1.      Hi-Lo Manor Park in 2014
2.      Hi-Lo Barbican in 2015
3.      Hi-Lo Liguanea and Montego Bay in 2016
4.      Portmore Pines Hi-Lo Food Store in 2017

The rest of their chain of 13 Hi-Lo stores islandwide will be renovated a cost of US$8 million, with Hi-Lo Cross Roads in Kingston and Hi-Lo Spanish Town to be completed in 2018.

So how does this tie in with their shopping online?

GraceKennedy and Hi-Lo Upgrades – Online Shopping with GK MPay using remittances

Clearly, they’re trying to become the Amazon of shopping in Jamaica.

With an online website for their renovated stores, GraceKennedy may be making it possible for Jamaicans to call their relatives abroad and have them purchase groceries and delivered to their front door.


Alternatively, you can receive your remittances in your Bank Account from Western Union as explained in my blog article entitled “How Western Union Cash to Bank Program may boost GK MPay Push if BOJ makes it Mandatory”. 

Then you can use MPay to purchase your groceries and have them delivered to your home.
This may suit their clever long term to encourage more use of their GK MPay platform as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to get Jamaicans to use Quisk, GK MPay for more than just Phone Credit”.

Combined with a push towards cryptocurency as predicted in my Geezam blog article entitled “GraceKennedy’s Innovation Lab planning to launch a GK MPay cryptocurrency” this will definately be a win-win for customers and GraceKennedy.


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