u200bUnmanned retail set off an entrepreneurial boom, a historical opportunity for vending machines

Vending machines have been around for a long time, but it has been difficult to get out of the embarrassing situation of tepidity in China. For more than ten years, vending machines have been in a state of inadequacy in the market. In recent years, vending machines have ushered in development opportunities. It is predicted that the annual revenue of vending machines in China in 2020 will reach 100 billion yuan. I believe that many people who have used vending machines have this experience. A bottle of drink priced at 3 yuan, if a consumer stuffs a 20 yuan bill, it means to find 17 1 yuan coins. How long will the coins in the machine be used up? I believe that this operation method is extremely inefficient and has high maintenance costs. In addition, the lack of domestic retail experience and the lack of channel expansion have become a stumbling block for the development of vending machines. An important role in the new retail scene. In foreign countries, vending machines are hailed as 'a robot that brings wealth 24 hours a day'. It does not require guards, sells things by itself, and collects money by itself. According to TechNavio data, the ratio of vending machines (VEM) and convenience stores in the United States is 30:1. The expected compound growth rate (CAGR) of vending machines in the United States from 2014 to 2018 is higher than 54.3%. The size of the vending machine market in the United States will be Reached 13.34 billion U.S. dollars. In Japan, there are nearly 6 million vending machines, and on average every 20 people own one vending machine. In comparison, Japan and the United States have a market capacity of more than 5 million units at any time, while China's vending machines are still less than 200,000 units, which are still in the bud and are bound to usher in a wave of gushing development. Data shows that China's labor costs have risen five times in the past 10 years. In 2016, Chinese employee salaries increased by 8%, ranking first in the world, far higher than the world average of 2.5%. In addition, China's overall rent growth was 7%. Rising labor and rental costs in China have reduced the business profits of physical stores. It is believed that this makes vending machines an important role in the new retail scene. On the one hand, vending machines save rent and labor costs; on the other hand, because they can quickly lay channels, vending machines take the lead in the development of the current retail industry. More and more brands are paying attention. It seems that online payment has also made vending machines more and more popular. The biggest reason why China did not popularize vending machines before is because of the many machine failures. Even in small settlements such as the purchase of beverages, banknotes are needed, and banknotes are often crumpled directly in the pockets of clothes. Therefore, it often happens that banknotes get stuck in vending machines, and consumers start to change. Have to be willing to buy beverages through a beverage company. At present, domestic vending machines basically realize the access to payment platforms such as WeChat and Alipay. Consumers can complete self-service transactions by doing a few simple operations on their mobile devices. The risk of failure caused by inferior banknotes is reduced, and the risk of cash being stolen due to the destruction of the vending machine is also reduced, which has played a very good role in promoting the popularization of vending machines. Huge room for market development According to the China Chain Store u0026 Franchise Association, the number of domestic convenience stores is about 90,000. As mentioned above, the number of domestic vending machines should be 2.7 million against the 30:1 ratio in the United States. At present, domestic vending machines are only less than 200,000, and the market for vending machines is huge. According to forecasts, based on the monthly revenue of 6,000 yuan per vending machine, the annual revenue of vending machines in China in 2020 will reach 100 billion yuan. It is believed that the current intelligence is the development trend of vending machines. Vending machines are no longer simply providing self-service retail services, but will provide high-end technology and service support in the field of smart vending. Through the leading management system of cloud services, easy management and operation of the mobile terminal can be realized, allowing the rapid penetration of smart retail terminals At the same time, a win-win situation between enterprises, franchisees and consumers will be realized. To give a simple example, vending machines are gradually equipped with LBS functions, and consumers can easily find nearby vending machines based on location. Merchants can use the Internet system to monitor machine inventory for immediate replenishment, as well as analyze consumer preferences to further optimize the consumer experience. The development status of domestic operators Many giants have also used vending machines to deploy their own new retail formats as new creative forces. Wahaha Group established Zongsheng Intelligent Technology Company, claiming to invest 2 billion yuan to enter the vending market. In fact, in recent years, Wahaha has launched several new products, but the market sales are weak, and it has not yet created a new fashion product that young people love. In contrast, Nongfu Spring's new π tea, NFC juice 17.5°, etc., are mainly targeted at young people's market, and their marketing is more active, and their performance has been rising. At present, in the electronic products, daily necessities, and comprehensive shelf categories, the players of vending machines have not yet begun to form an echelon. After all, the development of vending machines involves embedded development, IOT technology, data collection, mobile payment and other technologies, and has very high requirements for the stability of software and hardware systems. I believe that with the development of cloud computing, big data and intelligent vending systems, vending machines will become a new retail format in the future.