Winds up unmanned shelves: paying for the whole depends on self-consciousness, a business that challenges humanity

Lead: Should we believe that the constraints of morality accelerate the layout? Or turn to reality, changing the shape of equipment and technology? this is a problem.

Recently, many companies in the first-tier cities have opened an open snack shelf in the tea room or corridor, with common snacks such as potato chips and biscuits. Some shelves also have a freezer for drinks. There is no salesperson, no one is supervising it. The customer chooses the whole product for self-service, and the mobile phone scans the code to pay for it .

This kind of shelf is called unattended and convenient shelf in the industry. In addition, various self-service devices such as mini KTV, angel orange, rice beauty, and doll machine emerged intensively in the first half of this year. According to media reports, From January to July this year, the number of financing projects disclosed in the field was 25, and the accumulated amount exceeded RMB 2.8 billion. The unmanned self-service equipment has become a new entrepreneurial enthusiasm after sharing.

Compared with the recently-watched unattended convenience store, unattended shelves have no complicated technical limitations and equipment thresholds, but they also achieve the advantage of being able to quickly replicate. According to the small e-store CEO Rong Guang, Netease focuses on the introduction. It has more than 1,500 outlets across the country, with an average monthly flow of about five or six thousand yuan per outlet, and the specific situation of high-end office buildings can control the loss rate. He predicted that the small e micro store in the Beijing market, can be profitable in September .

After officially launched operations in three months, a snack bar COO Yi Tao in May this year to stop the promotion of self-service snack shelves, while maintaining the existing site operation, they sold the team turning to self-service snack containers of research and development. "As long as someone knows that taking something can not give money and there is no consequence, he will spread." Yi Tao feels that the national quality, or humanity, brings more challenges than he expected.

This is a business that is highly dependent on the choice of scenes, and it is a business that needs to confront humanity.

Where did the unmanned shelves come from?

Using the snack bar co-founder and COO Yi Tao to think of doing unattended convenience shelves is inspired by a story in the economics book "Devil Economics."

It was a morning in early September 2016. Yi Tao used to open the “get” app in his mobile phone. Just a few days ago, his last entrepreneurial project, the vehicle cleaning intelligent management system "Che Jie Network" - just ended because of technical problems that are difficult to solve. The project cost him two years and spent almost all of his savings. He clicked on the audio that was pushed on the day of the app, and he was introducing a story in "The Devil's Economics":

“In the 1980s, an American analyst, Feldman, brought bagels to the unit every Friday, and he was rewarded as an employee. Other colleagues heard that they also wanted to eat bagels, and he was weekly. Bringing 15 dozens of bagels. In order to recover the cost, Feldman placed a coin-operated basket next to the bagel and posted a price tag. Colleagues voluntarily paid money to the basket, and the cost recovery rate reached 95%."

The story is like a lightning strike on Yi Tao, who decided to follow Feldman's pilot. Yi Tao found a snack box from home, went to the supermarket to buy some snacks, put a QR code on the box to pay for his own WeChat, and then put the box in the company.

On the same day, his mobile phone shook and the payment information continued to spread. Yi Tao was quite excited. He realized that the unattended snack sale was a business that could be done. Soon after, he and his friends founded in Wuhan. The unattended convenience shelf company "use snacks."

Unlike Yi Tao, which is a dramatic source of inspiration, Xiao Hui, the CEO of Xiaowei, and Chen Huilu, the founder of the snacks, have been entrepreneurs in the retail or Shangchao related industries. In the constant exploration of the previous ventures, they slowly discovered A huge potential market for unattended convenience shelves.

Rongguang was a professional manager of a listed company in Hong Kong. After that, he started his business in the Internet field. The founding team of Xiaomeiwei Store has a total of 4 people. Rongguang is mainly responsible for the management of branch offices across the country. The company's main body, Xiaoyi, was established in 2015. The initial business was O2O short-distance distribution service. Under the impact of efficiency, cost and unprofitability, in March 2016, they began to transform – providing supermarkets with Unattended fast settlement SAAS platform. In August of the same year, after entering hundreds of supermarkets, this platform was also unable to continue to develop due to profitability issues.

“After analyzing the entire Chinese retail market, we hope to build a scenario that optimizes the traditional retail cost while satisfying the timeliness of the user experience that e-commerce can't solve .” Considering the need to achieve both, Rongguang and the team began trying unattended stores in August 2016.

This initial store form, glory to Netease focus on introduction, a bit similar to today's unmanned convenience store "Bingo box", and the company's tea room cooperation, the phone scan code back door opened, "but we later found that this operation The cost of the method is too high and it is difficult to copy quickly."

After continuous model demonstration, they suddenly realized that the tea room of each company is relatively a closed place, there are not so many people , "In this case, the link to scan the code can actually be saved." Then Xiao e came home to work with high-end companies to introduce self-service shopping shelves in the company's tea room. Until today, they chose to work directly with the company and do it lightly.

During the same period, Chen Huilu, the founder of the snacks e-home, also moved from the campus O2O project of cooked food sales to the pilot of unattended convenience shelves. He tried open shelves on campus and cooperated with the bosses in the school format. Let them be responsible for the sale. The visitor data of the shelves was found to be good. In August 2016, Chen Huilu selected five or six companies near Zhongguancun and began piloting unattended retail shelves.

How to do unmanned shelves?

E glory to small micro-store market space had an account balance, high-end office and the company, a small shop to a total of e micro paved 100 000 outlets in the north of Guangzhou-Shenzhen four first-tier cities. "At least 100,000 points, because the number of enterprises in Beijing is 660,000, 6% of these 660,000 companies, there are 30,000 companies, and some large companies can have multiple points, so I think Beishangguang Deep 100,000 outlets are a very conservative estimate."

According to Netease's current data and public information, the number of unmanned retail shelves in the country is less than 10,000. "Now the total number of sites in Beijing is almost 3,000, so there is still a long way to go." Chen Huilu said.

At this stage, the unattended shelf operation modes appearing on the market are mostly similar. The unmanned shelf provider communicates with the company's administrative department to enter the company, and places the snack shelf in an idle position such as the company's tea room. After picking up the favorite goods on the shelf, the user uses the mobile phone to scan the code to pay, and the process of purchasing the goods is all self-service. The scene of shelf placement is mainly concentrated in some Internet companies, foreign companies, entrepreneurial parks and high-end office buildings.

In terms of the delivery of goods, the provider of unmanned shelves will regularly send people to replenish out-of-stock items based on the sales data displayed in the background. Most of the distribution adopts the mode of sub-regional management and special person responsibility. The replenishment frequency is controlled 1-3 times per week according to the consumption capacity of each site.

According to Netease's focus on interviews, there are currently three types of cooperation between these unmanned shelf suppliers and enterprises: The first is that employees at the expense of purchasing snacks at their own expense, the snack shelf providers are responsible for their own profits and losses, the company is not responsible for management, and does not charge venue fees; The second is that the company provides snack subsidies, employees enjoy snacks to enjoy partial discounts, and the other is in the form of corporate general packages, where companies pay for snacks as employee benefits for free. Currently, the main income of unmanned shelf suppliers comes from the sale of goods.

E micro small shops mainly use the first form of cooperation that employees purchase their own snack, glory revealed to NetEase focus, at present small micro e shop in the country has more than 1,500 outlets, the average monthly water outlets in five or six thousand . He made a rough calculation: "If calculated according to 30% gross profit, the flow of five or six thousand yuan is the gross profit of 1,500 yuan, and the cost of personnel, logistics costs, warehousing and other expenses, each outlet The monthly net profit is 650 yuan ." Rongguang expects that the small e micro store in the Beijing market, can be profitable in September.

Lu and Chen Hui is expected to improve in all aspects of after a single shelf net profit margin snacks e home to around 10%; Yi Tao was revealed at the "snack bar" average daily water per shelf is 46 yuan, gross margin at 36% Ye Jianfeng, the founder of Tiger Express, said, "The benefits of the shelves are related to the company, and each person contributes more than 1 yuan per day (flowing water)."

Confronting with humanity?

The loss of goods with "Desserts" is farther and farther than the expected gap of Yi Tao. From February of this year to May, during the three months, "the loss rate of the snack bar has climbed from 4% to 10%, and is still declining, and as the company scales slowly, the payment rate It has also been going down, and the minimum payment rate is even less than 30%."

The biggest advantage of unattended shelf form is that it saves labor costs, but the biggest problem faced by this model is the loss of goods caused by unattended , which is the loss rate mentioned by Yi Tao.

"We have stickers on the shelves, using different slogans to remind everyone to pay in good faith, but also consider adding a camera on the shelf, which is a shocking effect." Yi Tao thought a lot of ways, but he thought that there should be confrontation behind this problem. Humanity, "As long as someone knows that taking something can not give money and there is no consequence, he will spread. So the national quality, or human nature, this challenge is much larger than we think."

Beginning in May this year , “Delivery Bar” suspended the promotion of its unattended convenience shelves . While maintaining the operation of the existing site, it began to turn to the research and development of “unmanned convenience container”. Yi Tao revealed to NetEase. The prototype is currently being completed in early July.

The vending cabinet occupies an area of ​​0.4 square meters. The user scans the code to open the door and selects the goods. Then the cabinet automatically clears the deduction fee through RFID (radio frequency identification) technology. The vending cabinet is powered by a lithium battery. The charging life is 8-8. 9 days. When it comes to the new machine, Yi Tao is very excited. "RFID technology is very mature, the recognition rate is very high, almost 100%, so the problem of lost goods is solved; and the vending cabinet is powered by lithium battery, no plug-in is required, I only need Negotiating cooperation with the property of the office building reduces the difficulty of promotion. The replacement period of a cabinet is five to six days, and the lithium battery can be replaced at the same time.

Regarding the cargo damage and the anti-humanity problem behind it, after clarifying with the team members, Rongguang believed that there are two ways to solve it: one is technology and the other is the scene . They feel that the technology is not easy to copy quickly, and the cost is high in the process of commercialization, so they choose to control the damage rate by entering a specific scenario. “The smaller the mobility of personnel, the lower the risk, and the theft is not spread in the office building.” Rong Guang believes that office buildings are the best choice in many scenarios such as schools, communities, and office buildings.

After nearly a year of operation, the current average small e cargo damage rate can be controlled micro store between 3% -4%. "There are several types of cargo damage, one is caused by our own management and transportation process. One is that after the end of the outlet, the personnel took the loss of the goods without payment." Rongguang told Netease to focus.

In the view of Rongguang, having high-quality enterprise resources makes him not too worried about the damage of goods . "The small e-shop has a good network of resources, and some of them are relatively high-quality big companies, and the white-collar workers who radiate are also better." According to the information of the small e micro store official website, companies such as China Merchants Bank, NetEase, Sohu, Gome, and Didi Travel are all small e-stores. Rongguang told Netease to focus on: " At this stage, we only have one goal, which is to sign all the quality companies as soon as possible. "

Before the start of the snack e-home trial, Chen Huilu did not have much confidence in his heart. "At the time, I was mainly worried about two problems: one was to lose more, and the other was not to sell much." At the beginning of the pilot, the system of snacks e-home unexpectedly showed a “downtime” during the sales peak of the afternoon.

At the time, Chen Huilu was stunned and thought that he was "completed." He was worried about the integrity of the unmanned shelves. Now there is a downtime situation, and the user can't scan the code. "It is easier to take the goods away." Worried about one night, the next morning, Chen Huilu rushed to the site to check the goods, which surprised him and delighted that the goods were basically not lost. Instead, there was a piece of paper next to them. Everyone bought what they bought and The amount is clearly recorded on the top, and the money is placed in the basket next to the shelf . “I felt very warm at the time and found that there is still a lot of positive energy.”

Unlike Yi Tao, who uses "drinks", Chen Huilu is more optimistic about the loss of goods: "Mobile payment is very convenient, everyone has the habit of buying small goods with WeChat change; in addition, the quality of the current youth group is still It is rising." He feels that the current hot sharing of bicycles will also greatly help the integrity of the whole society.

Rational capital

All entrepreneurs in the unmanned shelf industry have pointed out to Netease that the most urgent task at present is to seize the market . Chen Huilu really felt that the difficulty of BD's expansion of the site was increasing. "In the past, we used a BD to run casually. We could run twenty or thirty in a month, but now we may run more than a dozen in a month." But Chen Huilu also I think this is a good thing. As more and more players enter the market, the media reports increase gradually, and the acceptance of unattended shelves is getting higher and higher, and the attention paid to investors by the project is also played. Positive effect.

When the small e micro store was established in June 2015, it received 30 million angel investment. The investment institution is the group company of the company's founding team. The A round of financing is also divided into two parts in September 2016 and February 2017. The investment institution is the Beijing Jinwu Venture Capital Center, Beijing Yinhan Venture Capital Co., Ltd. under the investment of Zhongguancun Xingye, and the information industry fund of a provincial government. The financing amount is 140 million yuan.

Rongguang told Netease to focus on the B-round financing, which was launched in July. It is expected to be 200-300 million RMB, which will be used for market expansion, product management improvement and background system upgrade. According to informed sources, NetEase focuses on the disclosure. The B round of financing has been basically determined and is expected to be completed in August.

The snack e family got the seed round investment of Qianfan Capital of 5 million yuan in February 2016. The second round of financing has also been completed in mid-June this year. This round consists of many investments, among which there are many mainstream investment institutions, and the financing amount is More than ten million. Tiger fast-buy and snacks also got the first round of financing in the early stage of the project, and the second round of financing is also actively promoting.

At the beginning of June this year, Jiangsha, a venture capital partner of Jinshajiang, wrote an article analyzing the market of unmanned shelves and the challenges. She wrote in the article: “ Quick consumption is a big market, the new form of unattended convenience cabinets. There are still opportunities , and the entrepreneurs on the market are still in their infancy and are exploring the right way to cut."

Chen Huilu talked about his chat with Jiang Yan. "This industry is still in a very early stage. It is easy to be invisible and unclear. At present, the level of each player's outlets is not too large, scattered throughout Beijing, distribution costs. It's all relatively high. This is a business related to core density. The more you have, the higher the density, the lower the cost of a single distribution. "

"Devil Economics" writes: " If morality represents how the world should work in the eyes of mankind, and economics represents its actual mode of operation, then Feldman's bagel business is It happens to be in the category of the intersection of the two. "

For the future of unattended convenience shelves, it is more to believe in moral constraints and expand more scenarios, or to turn to the actual side to change the form of equipment and technology, I am afraid no one can give an answer now. What is certain is that the unattended shelf industry is just getting started, and it will generate more possibilities in the future.