In the past few days, the weather in Hangzhou has suddenly entered winter, and it is accompanied by the clammy and cold magic attack of rain from time to time.
The world super pigeon fishing, cycling, camping and other outdoor activities plan, and friends about mahjong, Texas and other indoor puzzle activities.
But everyone knows that buying snacks and drinks in the chess and card room, I would like to call it "".Chess room assassin
But fortunately, there are all kinds of unmanned vending cabinets in many places now, in addition to the common drink mineral water, as well as instant noodles and spicy noodles, which contain all the energy necessary for "high-intensity" mental work.
After using it a few times, Shichao found that he could always see the "Abundance e Sufficient Food" Yuanqi Forest and Youbao sitting in rows, they were just like the Golden Arches opposite KFC, the Honey Snow Ice City near Gu Ming, and the Tea Baidao, you have me, I have you.
Then this also makes Shichao curious, does this kind of unmanned vending cabinet also have a list of giants?
After a little understanding, I found outThe rivers and lakes of unmanned vending cabinets are more complicated than imagined
The most vocal in this matter is actually our company's administrative lady, who has been "harassed" by several unmanned vending cabinet business personnel in the past few years.
It's just that we have always had free snacks and fruits for bad reviews, so we didn't succeed.
However, with this relationship, the executive lady helped us contact Xiao Fang (pseudonym), the business (BD) of Yuanqi Forest.
Thinking that we had finally changed our minds and were ready to put a machine, Xiao Fang happily chatted with us about some industry insiders.
Xiao Fang told us, "In this industryThe company is very rolled
At present, there are bigger companies in the industry, such as Youbao, which has been "old companies for a long time", as well as beverage brands such as Nongfu Spring and Yuanqi Forest, as well as friends such as SF Express, which rely on logistics advantages to do cross-border business.
But a closer look at it found out,These giants are a bit fat
The first is that they're so small, and the top 5 have a combined market share of just over 15% (as of 2022).
Small companies in various cities occupy nearly 85% of the market share of the entire industry
The other is that the giants don't make money at all, and in the last month, they only accounted for 7% of the industry market share4%, the market share of the largest Ubox** (hereinafter referred to as Ubox), successfully listed in the Hong Kong stock market.
Judging from its prospectus, Ubox has lost nearly 1.8 billion in the past 3 years, and it also lost 1500 million, and the number of unmanned cabinets is also decreasing.
Although the listing of Ubox has once again exposed the problems of the industry to everyone, in Xiaofang's view, for the unmanned retail industry, which has been out of the mainstream spotlight for too long, ".The listing of Ubox is great news
Recalling the past few years, the unmanned retail industry, represented by unmanned vending cabinets, has risen and fallen like a jumping machine.
Remember that at the end of 2016, Amazon launched Amazon Go, an unmanned convenience store, which immediately attracted all kinds of attention from the outside world.
With Jack Ma officially proposing the concept of "unmanned retail" in 2017, the entire industry has ushered in the biggest outlet.
Major traditional retailers have made a move: 7-11 launched 7-11 Signature; Walmart set up self-service grocery kiosks; Actually home opened an unmanned convenience store eat box.
At the same time, some Internet giants are not willing to be lonely, such as Ali took out Tao Coffee unmanned coffee shop, Tencent launched a WeChat unmanned pop-up store, and JD opened a JD unmanned supermarket...
Doesn't it look like it's hot? But in fact, the unmanned convenience store is pure and numb.
According to iResearch, in 2017, unmanned convenience stores attracted more than 4 billion yuan of investmentThe actual cumulative landing is only 200
At that time, it was the unmanned retail cabinet that enjoyed the dividends of the unmanned retail outlet, which "multiplied" 250,000.
After all, it's easier and cheaper to get a refrigerated cabinet than to open a commissary or convenience store.
But the outlet of unmanned retail comes and goes quickly.
It is also abstract to say that the purpose of unmanned retail business is to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but the reason why everyone is finally dissuaded isThe cost is too high to make ends meet
Take the unmanned convenience store with the most ink from the outside world at that time, although there are no cashiers and security guards, but there are always employees such as cleaning and **, and in order to achieve "unmanned" sales, the store has to be equipped with a lot of "black technology" to save money at all.
What's more important is that after using these "black technology" intelligent equipment, everyone still picks and pays for things, and it is not convenient to go anywhere.
Finally, there is no one to go to the convenience storeJust for the sake of no one, no one, which did not bring a large number of customers, nor did it make consumers feel convenient or preferential.
So much so that the stalk of "Aunt God" was circulated on the Internet that year:
Guo Xiaomei, Orangutan Convenience, etc., which were born in 2017, exploded one after another in less than a year.
However, compared with the fall of the speed of light in unmanned convenience stores, unmanned vending cabinets can be regarded as preserving one acre and three points of land.
For example, although Ubox did not make more than 100 million a year in 2018 as it did at its peak, it also earned more than 40 million, and the days are still moisturizing.
But no one expected that the epidemic was coming.
For the epidemic, the unmanned retail field should have a heart-wrenching feeling.
For example, in Ubox's prospectus, "COVID-19" and "epidemic" appear 289 and 104 times, respectively...
In these three years, Ubox's performance has been extremely poor, with a total loss of more than 1.6 billion yuan.
By the time it comes to 2023, Ubox's points will be 20,000 fewer than at its peak.
But compared with the miserable past, most people in the industry are still quite optimistic about the futureIt shows that the industry may be starting to pick up
He told us that over the years, there have been companies entering the unmanned cabinet.
And the point resources that can be put in unmanned cabinets, in fact, are firmly grasped by these BDs, like some companies take the low price (8-9 discounts) given by unmanned cabinets as benefits, and sell them to employees at the original price, and some commercial points will open a more ** money to earn some extra income.
But whether these points are profitable or not, they all have one thing in commonThat's what brand cabinet you don't care about at all
Therefore, there are many "three family slaves" in the industry, who repeatedly jump between various platforms.
For example, the front foot invested a wave of points in Feng e Foot Food to earn commissions, and the back foot jumped to Youbao to use the points again to earn a profit, and then changed to the Yuanqi Forest to continue to pick.
You could say it's cutting leeks in reverse," Xiao Fang quipped, but on the other hand, "it's also slowly cultivating the market."
As these BDs repeatedly jump sideways, constantly expanding and stabilizing the understanding of unmanned vending cabinets in the public, more and more people are Xi to spending on unmanned vending cabinets.
For example, in September this year, Yuanqi Forest announced to the outside world that the unmanned cabinet business was fully profitable, but Xiaofang felt that this was temporary.
Because the flow of unmanned vending cabinets in summer can be twice as much as in winter, "the weather is good in September, and the flow is indeed better" On the whole, if you count the cost of hardware in the early stage, the rent of some commercial points, etc., ".Definitely still not profitable
However, in Xiaofang's view, brands like Yuanqi Forest come to make unmanned vending cabinetsMaking money isn't that important
Everyone also knows that these brands of Yuanqi Forest have to put a lot of advertisements in the subway and elevator every year, and the main thing is to mix up the face, so it may be better to spend money to buy other people's advertising space, it may be better to spend this money to shop unmanned vending cabinetsMake your own ad slot
And, inside the Genki Forest, they alsoThese points were used to do product research
To put it simply, they iterate on new products and flavors internally with a very high frequency, but it is difficult and expensive to understand the market acceptance of new products, so they rely on unmanned vending cabinets across the country to do this.
For example, Yuanqi Forest has come up with a sparkling water with a bad review flavor, and if they directly put it on offline channels in large quantities, it will be a loss in case the market feedback is not good.
But with unmanned vending cabinets, they put some new products directly in these cabinets.
If this account has bought the product on Monday and repeatedly repurchased it in the subsequent period, it means that the user likes sparkling water with bad reviews, and if he buys it once and never buys it again, it means that the user does not accept it.
With the analysis of the big data of the unmanned vending cabinet, we can know the market acceptance of new products, and it is also convenient to make the next decision.
Therefore, Xiaofang said that the internal profit has not been put in the first place, and the use of the advertising effect and database function of the point is already "enough".
In this way, the main function of co-authoring unmanned vending cabinets is not to sell goods?
Interesting is interesting, but Shichao thinks that for our ordinary consumers, regardless of whether you advertise or collect data, the things in the unmanned cabinet are good, numerous and cheap, which is the most impressive.