Set Up a Self-Checkout Fridge in an Afternoon

A self-checkout fridge sounds like a project. It is not. The fridge is already there, the members already have phones, and the club very likely already has MobilePay. What is left is an afternoon's work, most of it typing in product names.

Here is the order that gets you to a working fridge by the evening.

Before you start: the club's MobilePay

If the club still takes payments to a committee member's private number, sort that first. The fridge needs to be paid to the club's own MobilePay account, for reasons the treasurer will thank you for. If the account already exists, you are ready. If it does not, start the paperwork today and do the rest of this list while you wait.

1. Create the club

Create an account on Bippa with your email. There is no password: a login link arrives in your inbox and that is you signed in. Create the club's space, give it the club's name and, if you like, the club's crest.

Add the other people who look after the fridge. A treasurer who wants to see the money, the two volunteers who do the shopping. Everyone gets the same login-by-email, so nobody is ever texting a password around.

2. Add what the fridge sells

This is the typing part. For each product: a name, the club's price, and the barcode from the can or wrapper. The barcode is what the buyer's phone will recognise, so it has to be the one on the actual product you stock, not a similar one.

Take the products out of the fridge, put them on the table, and scan them one after another with your own phone. Ten products is ten minutes. Set the prices you agreed on, not the supermarket's.

3. Connect the club's MobilePay

In the club's settings, add the club's MobilePay account so payments go to it. This is what makes the buyer's tap land in the club's bank account and nowhere else.

4. Print the poster and put it on the door

Every fridge gets a QR code. Print the poster, put it in a plastic sleeve, and tape it at eye height on the fridge door. When a member points their camera at it, the club's fridge opens in their browser. No app to install.

Write one line underneath in marker: what the fridge pays for. "Every can funds the spring tournament" is worth more than any instruction.

5. Buy the first crate yourself

Before the members see it, scan the code, scan a can, pay the 12 kroner. Watch the sale appear in the overview and the stock go from 24 to 23. Then do it once more with two items. You now know exactly what a member experiences, and you can answer the first "how does this work" at training without guessing.

The first weekend

Expect two things. Somebody will ask whether they can still pay cash. The answer is no, and it is a kinder no than it sounds: no cash means no box, no counting, and no "roughly what I have". And somebody will scan a product that is not in the system yet, because a volunteer bought a new brand. Add it in a minute from your phone and move on.

By Monday you have a fridge that recorded every sale it made, a treasurer who can see the weekend's takings without a plastic tub, and a volunteer who knows what to buy because the shelf told them.

Create your club and start with the typing. The afternoon is shorter than you think.