撰写Peninsula All Media reporter, Liu Yufan
In recent years, with the development of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and other technologies, "new retail" has become a hot topic. As a new scene constructed in the new retail era, self-selling machines have attracted the attention of major giants and attracted massive investment. As early as 2018, soft drink giant Nongfu Spring deployed self-selling machines into a new retail scene – the underground parking lot of the community, and named it "Sesame Shop". In the past few days, after visiting many sesame shops in Shinan, Shibei and Licang, the reporter found that the use of some self-selling machines was not satisfactory, some had been "closed" after power failure, the huge machines were covered with dust, and some self-selling machines were empty… Faced with the dilemma of "acclimatization", whether self-selling machines can really "take root" remains to be observed and tested.
Reflect:
Community underground parking lot
Why is the sesame shop "closed"?
"Many of the underground parking lots in Qingdao are equipped with Nongfu Spring sesame shops, but our community has been deserted for a long time. Last year, I bought drinks on the machine, and there were really not many people who bought them." Recently, a user’s message in Qingdao has attracted a lot of attention, and many netizens have reported that there is an abnormality in the sesame shop in the parking lot of the community. "Nongfu Spring is doing this project, what else is there besides a little advertising effect?" "The things inside are too simple, and the community now has water purifiers, so there is no advantage at all!"…
A sesame shop on Rudong Road, Shinan District, there are no products in it.
The reporter noticed that although the name has "shop", according to the official introduction, the sesame shop is still essentially a "self-selling machine service point". It is understood that the emergence of sesame shops echoes the background of retail enterprises entering the new retail pattern and realizing omni-channel operations. For the emerging format of sesame shops, Nongfu Spring has high hopes. On the WeChat official account of Nongfu Spring Sesame Shop, the sesame shop is considered to provide "all kinds of high-quality products that have been screened layer by layer". The strong R & D department behind it is also working day and night to develop various healthy and convenient products for everyone, and put them on the shelves for everyone as soon as possible.
However, the reporter’s search found that "complain" against sesame shops is not an exception. "What exactly is the model of this smart cabinet called’sesame shop ‘? It has been placed in the community for a long time, but apart from the advertising effect, I have never understood what commercial value this thing has." A user commented. Others questioned that if you just sell bottled water, the rent and electricity bills are not small costs, and I don’t know if commodity sales can cover the cost.
"Nowadays, household water purifiers have become very popular, and there are also separate water purifiers in the community, which can be used to draw water with coins and cards, and they are also very cheap." If it is said that it is planned to be made into an unmanned container, the problem is that it has been in operation for so long, and there are no other categories on the shelves. If the positioning is only to sell Nongfu Spring’s own products, it is too single, and it obviously will not work. "Some netizens analyzed this.
Visit:
Cut off "water" and "electricity"
Some vending machines were abandoned
In response to the doubts of netizens, in the past few days, the reporter visited many sesame shops in the urban area of Qingdao and found that some self-selling machines had neither "water" nor "electricity", and the machines were already in an abandoned state. What is even more incredible is that in the WeChat official account of Nongfu Spring Sesame Shop, click on the "Nearby Sesame Shop" column, and the map still shows the location of the sesame shop, but the reporter’s on-site visit found that some sesame shops could not be used normally.
Another sesame shop in Shibei District is no longer in normal use
In the underground parking lot of a community on Wen’an East Road in Licang District, the garage entrance and two self-selling machines inside have been powered off, and the above has been covered with a thick layer of dust. The customer service number on the machine shows that it has been "empty number". Many residents of the community expressed regret for the sad withdrawal of the sesame shop. "When the epidemic was quite serious in early 2020, it was not easy to buy things, and the family also bought large buckets of water inside." Ms. Du, a resident of the community, recalled, "I remember that in addition to water, there are also various beverages. After buying, you can directly carry them to the car, which is more convenient. I don’t know when the power has been cut off, and it is dark inside."
In the same community, the official WeChat account of the sesame shop shows that there is still a "sesame shop" operating normally in Unit 2, Building 2, the garage of the community return room, but after the reporter came to the navigation location, he found that the self-selling machine here has also been unable to use normally.
In an underground parking lot on Wen’an East Road, Licang District, the sesame shop can no longer be used normally
On February 8, according to the location of the sesame shop marked on the map, the reporter went to the Tokyo neighborhood of Vanke City, Huaiyuan Road, Shibei District. There are three "sesame shops" here, which are arranged next to three buildings. The reporter visited one by one and found that the "sesame shop" in Building 3 is still in normal operation, but only a few buckets of large-capacity water in the vending machine, and small bottles of bottled water have been sold out. The other two vending machines have become "abandoned children". Not only are there no goods in them, but the service phones on them have also been cleaned up. On the side of the machine, the reporter noticed that there were copies of the business license and food business license of the Nongfu Spring joint stock company on it, and in addition, there were "two certificates" of a trading company in Qingdao. "This machine has been out of power for a long time. Maybe someone has recharged it and hasn’t used up the money yet. You can call the customer service number and ask," a security guard in the community told reporters during the interview.
A sesame shop on Huaiyuan Road, Shibei District, has been abandoned
On February 9, the reporter came to the Blue Sky Xinyuan Community, No. 9 Rudong Road, Shinan District. According to the guidelines of the Sesame Shop WeChat official account, the sesame shop in the community is still in normal operation. The reporter visited and found that the sesame shop here is located at the entrance of the parking lot of the community. Although it is still powered on, there are no goods in it. On the large screen of the self-selling machine, consumers are still reminded of the "recharge courteous" activity. If you recharge 200 yuan to 2,000 yuan, you will receive different degrees of coupons and product rewards.
Response:
The current equipment has been discontinued
The operator terminated the contract two years ago
On February 9, in response to the operation of the "sesame shop" in the Qingdao market, the reporter called the customer service number on the self-selling machine. "It has stopped operating now, and the equipment has not been taken away." An operator responded that many self-selling machines near Wen’an East Road in Licang District have stopped operating. The reason why they have not been taken away is due to the impact of the Chinese New Year. The moving company is on vacation and has not come and moved away. "What’s going on now? The dealer has changed. Now the dealer has offered to quit, and we can’t replenish the goods now." The staff member said that it may be necessary to change the dealer and replenish the goods later.
Then the reporter contacted an operator who was previously in charge of the sesame shop in Nongfu Spring in the urban area. "I no longer operate the sesame shop, and I haven’t found a suitable operator there." The operator said that he has terminated the contract with Nongfu Spring about the sesame shop, more than two years have passed. The operator also said that some communities may have expired their contracts with the property and no longer cooperate with the property.
A sign "Recharge is courteous" was posted at a sesame shop in Shibei District
The operator also revealed that the Nongfu Spring sesame shop project started in 2018. There were many reasons in Qingdao in the early stage, which caused some sesame shops in the community to withdraw, but some good spots in the community were still retained. Due to the contract issues with the property, some self-selling machines that are no longer in operation have not been dealt with. According to his understanding, the sesame shop project in Qingdao may have been put on hold.
On the morning of February 9, in response to the operation of Nongfu Spring Sesame Store in Qingdao Market, the reporter called Nongfu Spring’s national customer service number and sent the relevant interview content to the designated mailbox. However, as of press time, no reply on this matter has been received.
On the WeChat official account of Nongfu Spring Sesame Store, only one of the sesame stores displayed nearby can actually be used normally
Say:
Limited profit, operator loss
The competition in the vending machine industry has intensified
"In the FMCG industry, the manufacturer usually sells the goods to the dealer, and the dealer sells them through the channel. The self-selling machine is equivalent to adding a channel to the dealer. Maybe the dealer does the math, and the profit of this self-selling machine is not very high, so he decides to quit." An industry insider said that if the sales of the products in the self-selling machine cannot keep up, it will always be in a state of loss, coupled with the cost of delivery, resulting in difficulties in operation.
The reporter noticed that in some self-selling machines, not only pure water is sold, but also juice drinks, various foods, toys, etc. The "blind box economy" that has been very popular in recent years essentially relies on a self-selling machine. In the eyes of many netizens, the self-selling machines represented by Nongfu Spring Sesame Store have certain advantages. "This kind of self-selling machine opened in the community corridor is particularly good. First, it reduces the amount of water consumers go to the supermarket to buy other brands, and second, it increases the amount of water consumers use in cooking, making tea, iced drinks and other home scenes. Although it is also very convenient to place an order online, there is still a time difference between purchase and use. This practice of opening the store at the door gives consumers the greatest convenience, and after taking the lead in occupying the space, other companies cannot replicate it. "A user left a message.
A sesame shop in Shibei District, with a large bucket of water in it
Some netizens believe that, on the one hand, self-selling machines do not require shop assistants, eliminating labor costs and ensuring 24-hour business; coupled with a small footprint and low rental costs; the most important thing is that self-selling machines can strengthen brand perception, just like billboards, covering more people.
However, some netizens pointed out the shortcomings of the vending machine, "Some of the shortcomings of the products in the vending machine are obvious, and the prices inside are not competitive enough. Compared with the prices of the products sold on other e-commerce platforms and stores around the community, the price of the products in the vending machine is not cheap." One user commented that some consumers may buy the products in the vending machine out of curiosity, once or twice is OK, but after a long time, it is not easy to develop long-term consumption habits.
Extend:
"New retail" scene reconstruction
Major giants "horse race enclosure"
According to public information, as early as 1993, second-hand vending machines imported from Japan, the United States and other places appeared in Guangzhou, Shanghai and other places. In recent years, the retail industry has undergone earth-shaking changes. The concept of "new retail" has emerged, and some new retail scenes have begun to be reconstructed. Since 2015, Nongfu Spring, Unity, Wahaha, Yuan Qi Sen Lin and other FMCG giants have bet heavily on self-selling machines. Nongfu Spring has put more than 30,000 sesame shops across the country; Ali and Tencent have actively deployed new retail, launched unmanned convenience store business and automatic sales business; in January 2022, Yuan Qi Sen Lin’s company invested 200 million yuan in Hefei to establish a new company, including vending machine sales.
The reporter learned that more and more self-selling machines are appearing in shopping malls, subway stations, schools, and scenic spots in major cities. In the eyes of major consumer giants, the emergence of self-selling machines allows consumers not to spend time running to different stores, nor to compare different online stores in front of the computer. In addition, it saves the layer-by-layer packaging of express packages, the energy of going to the mall in bad weather, the time of waiting for online shopping to arrive, and the uncertainty of strangers delivering goods to your door. Especially some self-selling machines that are close to people’s lives bring people a lot of convenience. They only need to go downstairs, or even when they go home from get off work, when walking the dog, when they go downstairs to take out the garbage, they can directly pick up the goods and take the elevator home.
More importantly, as a self-service retail end point, the vending machine has become a new form of basic convenience and instant convenience consumption in daily life. The vending machine has established a new consumption scene that is closer to consumers and allows consumers to experience better, so it is favored by capital. In 2020, a technology company specializing in vending machines in Qingdao won the participation of Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba, with a 5.47% stake. This vending machine operator provides users with vending machine products such as beverage machines, integrated machines, milk vending machines, and lunch boxes. It is distributed in most urban subway lines and some high-speed rail stations, airports, and transportation hubs in large and medium-sized cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
On February 9, the reporter got in touch with the vending machine manufacturer located in the West Coast New District. The customer service staff said that the company is mainly a manufacturer of vending machines, and the products they produce are also placed in Qingdao Metro. The reporter’s search found that the company’s intelligent vending platform has nearly 40,000 vending machines running stably online, and the number of online machines has continued to grow rapidly in the past few years. The number of daily transactions on the company’s vending platform exceeded one million at 10:00 pm on September 24, 2021, breaking the record for the number of single-day transactions.
Stones from other mountains:
The development space of vending machines is vast
The problem of "acclimatization" needs to be solved
According to public data, in Japan, there is an average of one vending machine for every 25 people, the United States is one for every 50 to 60 people, Europe is one for every 50 to 120 people, and our country’s per capita self-service vending machine ownership is only about 2200 people/unit. Some analysts believe that with the rapid development of Japan’s economy, self-vending machines have developed rapidly as an infrastructure and have been welcomed by people.
Xiaoyuan, who has lived and worked in Hiroshima, Japan for many years, told the Peninsula All Media reporter that according to her observation, Japanese vending machines are widely distributed, and almost every company has a layout at the entrance. The range of goods that can be sold is very wide, and the common ones are mainly drinks. "I have seen people selling dumplings, and there may be more novel vending machines, which are more common in Tokyo."
Xiaoyuan said that these vending machines are aimed at people with a faster pace of life, and they are not uncommon in rural Japan. The reason why the penetration rate of self-selling machines in China is not high, Xiaoyuan believes that in China, people are still used to buying items in convenience stores and commissaries. There are also views that under the attack of convenience stores and mom-and-pop stores, there are not many scenarios suitable for vending machines. Coupled with the small number of categories sold by vending machines, the same brand of drinks is even more expensive than those sold in convenience stores, and consumers do not buy it.
Although the installation and sales of self-selling machines in Japan and other places have reached saturation in recent years, the domestic self-selling machine market still has a broad space for development from the perspective of the big giants’ eagerness to "horse race". In the opinion of industry insiders, self-selling machines imported from abroad will more or less face the problem of "acclimatization". Only by solving the problems of scattered business volume and difficult maintenance can we explore a development path that is most suitable for China.
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