How can unmanned retail be grounded?

——Visit the phenomenon of closed stores and withdrawals in some unmanned retail formats

  Under the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, the unmanned retail business with the advantages of intelligence and contactlessness has become a real hit.

But recently, some citizens have discovered that some unmanned supermarkets and unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinets have been closed and withdrawn. What is the reason?

In this regard, the reporter visited.

  Our reporter Jiao Lili/Text News reporter Xie Lei/Photo

  Opened for only half a year

  Unmanned convenience store withdrawal

  On December 29, 2020, Ms. Zhang, a citizen living in Rongjing Garden, discovered that the unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinets previously displayed in the community disappeared.

“It’s late to get off work today, and the weather is cold. I want to buy less vegetables nearby. I try my luck and hope that there are fresh vegetables in the cabinet. I don’t even know the cabinet is gone.” She said, a month ago, the neighbors found out that there was nothing. The vegetable and fruit replenishment rate of the human intelligent fresh cabinet is slow, and often no new dishes are on the shelves for three or four days. At that time, she thought this phenomenon was only a temporary phenomenon.

  “In fact, the unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinet in the community is very convenient. You can buy vegetables 24 hours a day. Vegetables and fruits are clearly marked and cost enough.” Ms. Zhang recalled that in 2019, when this new thing first appeared in the community, residents People are rushing to experience it, sometimes you have to line up to buy food.

Later, there were more news reports from the media, and people were accustomed to it. “The returning customers of the unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinet are probably left overtime workers who have no time to buy food.” Ms. Zhang said.

  Subsequently, the reporter visited the operation of unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinets placed in other communities in the provincial capital such as Yindu Garden, and found that they were not ideal. Either the door was left in the cold or the fresh food cabinets disappeared.

As a result, many citizens thought of the unmanned convenience stores that had landed in our city two years ago, and they had already quietly exited.

  In February 2018, Hebei Sanluwu Group opened an unmanned smart convenience store next to the 36524 convenience store near the Provincial Museum; in December of that year, the JD X unmanned supermarket appeared on the ground floor of the Honeycomb Shopping Center. These two stores It has quietly withdrawn from the store in just over half a year.

  Inconvenient consumer experience

  The market is cold after the early adopters

  In recent years, in the context of the development of new retail, new formats such as unmanned retail, unmanned distribution, unmanned hotels, and unmanned restaurants have been launched in many large and medium-sized cities.

In the process of accelerating the development of the modern service industry, the city has taken the unmanned retail format as one of the formats that it strongly supports, and encourages commercial circulation companies to innovate consumption scenarios and explore emerging formats.

  Especially in the post-epidemic era, the "unmanned economy" favored by non-contact scenarios has shown its talents in the service industry and has attracted the attention of capital from all ethnic groups. But why unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinets and unmanned intelligent convenience stores are in our city But it is difficult to survive?

  The mobile phone scan code or "swipe face" to enter the store, automatically recognize settlement and payment, the unmanned smart convenience store did make people feel very fresh in the early stage, but the experience did not meet the expectations of consumers.

  "At first I thought unmanned convenience stores were fun, but every time I bought something, I had to take out my mobile phone to scan the code before entering the store. It felt troublesome." Mr. Hu, a citizen, said that convenient and comfortable consumption is popular now, but unmanned supermarkets need to scan the code. In order to enter the store, it adds a "threshold."

Some citizens interviewed also reported that if there is a problem during shopping or settlement, no one in the unmanned supermarket can consult and help solve it, so they have to give up the purchase, which is not as convenient as imagined.

  High operating and maintenance costs

  Capital is difficult to follow up

  "The investment in smart hardware equipment for unmanned convenience stores is huge, and the public's recognition of unmanned supermarkets is not very high, but the product loss rate remains high, and goods are often lost. Therefore, the group decided to suspend the unmanned convenience store plan. "Hebei Sanluwu Group explained.

  Wang Jingqiang, general manager of Hebei Maixiang Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., was the first operator in the city to set foot in the field of unmanned intelligent fresh food cabinets. When talking about the reasons for the suspension of operations, he said, "The technology of fresh food cabinets is not yet mature, and the system has loopholes. , Things are often lost. In addition, the community group buying of platform e-commerce has drastically lowered the price of vegetables, which is really uncompetitive."

  Business people said that unmanned supermarkets seem to have certain cost advantages in terms of rent and labor, but from the actual situation, the overall operating cost is very high.

The automatic cargo identification equipment of the unmanned supermarket and the operation system established by artificial intelligence and big data require high investment in the early stage, and the maintenance cost in the later stage is not small.

  The high operating costs will eventually be added to the price of goods.

“When there used to be an unmanned egg vending machine here, 15 eggs were sold for 22.8 yuan, which was too expensive,” said Mr. Huang, a resident of Yuxiangyuan Community.

Previously, Tianniu Animal Husbandry chose Yandu Jindicheng, Yuxiangyuan, Yaqingyuan and other communities in our city as pilots of unmanned egg vending machines according to different consumer groups, but sales accounted for less than the total sales of Shijiazhuang market. 0.02%.

  According to the "China Unmanned Retail Industry Market Report" survey released by a consulting agency, unmanned stores are prone to machine breakdowns, poor user experience, and the quality of fresh products is difficult to guarantee.

"Unmanned retail projects that blindly burn money to expand cannot achieve a balance between scene fit, replenishment cost, user fit, etc., and large-scale financing is difficult to sustain." According to industry analysts, capital and entrepreneurs had previously blindly followed the trend. Ignoring the nature of retail, when capital did not follow up later, sales encountered bottlenecks and store closures became an inevitable ending.

  Find the right scene operation

  The unmanned retail market is promising

  New technologies and new business formats have a growth period.

At present, unmanned supermarkets and unmanned convenience stores are still only testing grounds for commercial changes.

  On this track, after all, companies are competing for hard power in technology, operations, and channels, and the problems to be solved are still cost, efficiency and experience.

Cao Runting, executive vice president and secretary-general of the Provincial Federation of Commerce, said that if the company does not have the ability to self-hematopoiesis, the technology is not good enough, the experience is not good enough, the supply chain is inefficient and other problems cannot be solved and improved, and the business model will be too advanced and difficult. Escape the fate of bankruptcy.

  Some people leave the market, but some people continue to march into unmanned retail.

Since the beginning of this year, Nongfushanquan unmanned and convenient service points in many communities in our city have been widely welcomed by community residents.

  “Drinking water is a necessity for every household. It’s cheaper to buy water here than in supermarkets.” A resident living in the Golden Mileage Community said that the quality of branded companies’ products is guaranteed, and business people often come to the community to replenish goods. The water fetching operation steps are also very simple, and most neighbors are satisfied with the unmanned service here.

  The standard unmanned self-service cash registers of the major supermarkets in our city also greatly save the waiting time for customers to queue for settlement. Customers can directly scan the barcode of the product to pay, eliminating the payment link at the counter, and providing consumers with more convenience.

The fully self-service unmanned cash register system developed by Decathlon stores using radio frequency identification technology has increased the efficiency of commodity inventory by 5 times.

These successful unmanned businesses have helped operators speed up the expansion of market scale and increase consumption frequency.

  "Finding a suitable scenario to operate unmanned retail can be'grounded' and be recognized and welcomed by consumers." The industry generally believes that the nature of business and user experience are the key factors for the future success of unmanned retail.

The trend of integration of new technologies and retail is irreversible. There is still ample room for technologically-sense retail, and the unmanned retail market is still developing.

  The reporter's feelings——

  Tolerance and prudence

  Develop new formats

  New economic formats such as unmanned retail are the transformation and upgrading of traditional retail, which can provide consumers with better services.

It is precisely because of these innovations in society that life has become more colorful.

  Recently, our city promulgated the "Shijiazhuang City Automatic Drug Vending Machine Drug Operation Management Regulations (Trial)", which has made clear requirements for the operation and management of the drug vending machine, not only encouraging and supporting the development of new business forms of unmanned drug vending machines , And follow up the supervision work in time to avoid some problems that may be caused by the emergence of new business formats.

We applaud the tolerance and prudence of the new format.

In this way, the value orientation that encourages innovation and creation and stimulating market vitality is maximized.

  The new business format is not a simple scale expansion of traditional industries, but the use of advanced technologies such as the Internet to promote revolutionary or disruptive changes in industries and models, and ultimately form new growth momentum through digital economy and other fields.

In the early days of entrepreneurship, new business formats often incorporate the interaction and deployment of multiple resources. This innovation process is also a trial and exploration process, and exploration may fail.

We can neither leave it alone nor use old regulations to restrict new formats.

Therefore, adhere to the principle of inclusive and prudent supervision in the governance of new business formats, give market players an appropriate period of inclusiveness, and allow the industry to find the best balance between success and failure in the exploration, so as to promote the rapid and healthy development of new business formats.

  It is worth noting that although inclusive prudential supervision strives to create a relaxed development environment for new business formats, it does not mean letting go, but to establish a prudential supervision system that is compatible with the development of new business formats to ensure that new business formats will not break the bottom line , Leaving room for the development of new businesses and new formats.

  We expect more new things to "thrive".