In July 2017, the first unmanned supermarket in Hangzhou was unveiled at the “Taobao Creation Festival”.

In September 2017, the first batch of colorful fruit box unmanned convenience stores in Shanghai area was declared closed.

In February 2018, GOGO Xiaochao announced its bankruptcy only four months after its official opening.

Seeing that the capital has risen from a high-rise building, it seems that the capital building has collapsed. In the blink of an eye, the unmanned retailer, which was hailed by Ma Yun and known as the “new retail light”, fell from the peak of the mountain and came to the close. .

However, even in the bubble of unmanned retail boom, there are still people jumping in and out, and searching on Baidu, there are still many unmanned retail projects to be launched one after another, and the battlefields are mostly transferred from the city of Beishangguang. For the second and third tier cities.



(Baidu search map)

Old players struggled and sold out, and new players recruited and convinced that Twilight was in sight. Under the unmanned retail sunset, the interest-oriented capital seems to be fainting, and intoxicated in the dream of no-retail retailers, they are not willing to wake up.

Unmanned retail is the darkness before dawn, or the bubble of false prosperity. Perhaps we can see some clues from the current situation through the snagging of the status quo of unmanned retail.

The concept of unmanned retail is not Ma Yun's original creation. As early as before, the first unmanned supermarket candy box in China has landed in Guangdong in August 2016. The US e-commerce giant Amazon also opened an unmanned retail in Seattle in December of the same year. Convenience store Amazon Go. Until 7 months after the “Taobao Creation Festival” in Hangzhou, China, Alibaba’s unmanned supermarket “Amoy Coffee” debuted, making no-time retail nostalgic.

From the Baidu Index, we can also see that before 2017, unmanned retail sales were almost untouched in China. It was not until July of 2017 that it suddenly appeared in the eyes of the public. Although the attention after this has continued to decline, it is a different day than before.



(Photo: "Unmanned retail" Baidu index)

And this is just the beginning. Then in August 2017, Suning opened its first unmanned shop “Suning Sports Biu” at its Nanjing headquarters. In November, Jingdong also released unmanned supermarkets and unmanned convenience stores. The e-commerce giants have entered the market, which has stimulated the uninhabited retail of the original pool of water. It has spurred profitable startups to join in, and fear that they will not be able to break into this blue sea after a delay:

The Box of Fruits further speeds up the laying of outlets, and the line has fallen to more than 40 stores; EasyGo's future convenience store has received 10 million strategic investment, which is fierce; the first store of convenience bee convenience store arrived in Beijing in October of the same year, and seized the first line. ......

Unmanned retail has not only won the enthusiasm of e-commerce giants and venture capital companies, traditional retail is not willing to be left behind by the newly defined "new retail" layout, have joined the war to share a piece of cake:

In June of the same year, Auchan and RT-Mart, both of which belonged to Gaoxin Retail, launched the Auchan Bingo Box and the RT-Mart Box. In the same month, the chain giant Wal-Mart also launched a self-service grocery kiosk; the beverage giant Wahaha signed with Shenlan Technology for 3 years. Wantai, 10 years of 1 million sets of TakeGo unmanned store cooperation agreement; Zhou Heiya and good shop also reached a cooperation in the dark blue technology, to achieve intelligent upgrade of the national stores...

The venture capital circle that has always been swaying by the wind is not to be outdone, and most of them are optimistic about the field of unmanned retail. There are rounds from the seed wheel, the angel wheel, the PRE-A wheel, and the A round. So far, more than 50 VC/PE institutions have participated in the investment in unmanned retail, with a total financing of nearly 50 billion.



Ma Yun once said: "The era of pure e-commerce is dead, and the future belongs to new retail." From the opening of the unmanned supermarket to earning a gimmick, to the offline acquisition of large-scale commercial super, the ambition of the new retail can be described as very high-profile.

Only one high-profile publicity has captured the attention and traffic of unmanned retailers. While promoting self-branding, it also sent a message to countless people: Ali wants to enter the unmanned retail, hot-headed investors, You can go to the road first.

Compared with the entrepreneurs who are fast and step-by-step, Ali’s performance shows the patience and meticulousness of the tiger before eating. Although there is no widely known movement after the “Taobao Festival”, it is constantly laid out in the dark. New retail, investment in the acquisition of a number of large supermarkets. It is known that Alibaba owns 36.16% of Gaoxin Retail (Aoshan and RT-Mart are brands of Gaoxin Retail) and is the second largest shareholder of Hualian Supermarket.



However, unmanned retail may have great potential. However, in the end, the immature technology and market, as well as the following problems encountered in the development process, fundamentally limit the development of unmanned retail.

01 High operating costs

Different from the public's imagination, although the unmanned retailer omits the labor cost of the cashier, the marketing, replenishment, finishing of the shelves, cleaning, etc. still require manual operation, coupled with the high cost of the unmanned shop technology, making no The operating cost of a supermarket is not lower than that of an ordinary retail store. Amazon Go and Amoy coffee are actually trials without cost. The reason why it has not been promoted on a large scale, in addition to the need to improve the technology, high cost is the main constraint.

02 Technology is not up to standard

The unmanned convenience store industry is still in the early stage of technology exploration in terms of technology. When people are intensive, it is more prone to inaccurate identification problems. Amoy coffee is affected by the network and sometimes it is impossible to recognize faces. Customers who have experienced the Box of Fruits will also find that their products are sensed by RFID. If the consumer avoids the camera and tears off the RFID sticker on the product, the box cannot sense the goods in the user's hand. Will open automatically.

03 Sale of goods category restrictions

Judging from the main products of the current unattended convenience store, it is mainly based on beverages, snacks, daily necessities and fresh food. Due to the small size of the unmanned convenience store and the lack of employee operations, it means that some fresh food products cannot be sold. Users enter the convenience store at different times, representing different shopping needs. Traditional convenience stores will place different products on the shelves according to the morning and evening and lunch peak hours, and the types of unattended convenience stores need to be highly standardized.

04 User Experience

Last but not least, there is no improved user experience. In the traditional community convenience store, the user will have an emotional connection with the salesperson who is socially similar to the acquaintance because of the high frequency of purchasing the product. This sense of temperature is never brought by the unmanned supermarket. It is the most concerned issue for consumers to throw away the sense of temperature, whether shopping is convenient and whether the goods are cheap. If the business can not achieve the core pursuit of the needs of consumers, in order to pursue no one and no one, then all innovation is doing nothing.

However, if we barely support the current unmanned retail, we will find that it is good to take the tree back. Behind the bingo box is RT-Mart, Auchan; behind the Take go, there are Wahaha and Ali. It can be said that Ali is the banker behind him. Follow the small capital is just a gambler. If you lose, you will be out.

For the capital-rich giants, the failure of the test and the low profit of the unmanned retail will not cause any substantial damage to them, but for the start-ups without capital, the mice will pay tuition. If the venture capitalist fails, the giant can upgrade the concept change routine at any time; if the venture capitalist succeeds, the fake tiger must open his eyes and take it with a strong volume and capital. Guo Xiaomei merged with tomato convenience, and the orangutan facilitated the acquisition of 51 snacks. The convenience bee bought the frog collar frog, the small players were gradually cleared, and the big players continued to shrink. The unrecognized industry reshuffle has already begun quietly.

Therefore, no matter how far the grand plan was drawn before or now, the fact tells us that the unmanned retail pig, which was forced to hang on the vent, has been burnt by the capital. In the immature technology and market, the real enthusiasm of unmanned retail has not yet arrived. The industry in the water test stage is full of crises and traps. Entrepreneurs without strong capital and strength will follow suit and become the footsteps of capital. stone. When the VC became a "following the wind", it was also time to wake up from the dream of unmanned retail.