Vending machine is still the hottest new retail landing mode
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 in 2020, "contactless" has become one of the priority factors for many consumers when shopping, resulting in many new permanent changes in consumer behavior, and unmanned retail has a new breakthrough opportunity.
Under such a big premise, the vending machine with a history of decades has gradually become a sharp tool for many brands to close the distance with consumers. However, the products sold have changed from ordinary bottled drinks to fresh juice, coffee, ice cream, masks, flowers, fruits and other products. Some brands have also tried to use vending machines to sell their own trendy dolls and handmade products and achieved good results. No matter how the products sold change, vending machines are still one of the most important forms of expression of unmanned retail.
At the same time, more problems have emerged. For example, how many people need to replenish? When is the replenishment time? Which item will be replenished? How to complete replenishment efficiently and at low cost? Almost all participants in this industry know that vending machines should be placed at points with large traffic and high repurchase rate, so as to improve sales and income. But the question arises, which point has the largest flow and which commodity has the largest repurchase? Almost everyone knows that the operation of vending machines needs to be refined and intelligent, but how to use big data analysis to reasonably allocate quotas for various commodities to achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase?
This requires a complete set of solutions to solve the above problems from the perspectives of people, goods and markets.
In terms of "people", the first is to look at "traffic". The selection of high-quality vending machine points is different from that of traditional retail stores. Scenarios are more diversified and vertical, requiring a complete set of data models and decision-making ideas.
The second is to look at the "crowd", sell appropriate goods according to the demand scenario of the target crowd, and carry out marketing activities according to the characteristics of the target crowd to form private domain traffic and create brand stickiness.
From the perspective of "goods", selection is very important. The display area of each vending machine is limited, so the operators have to pay attention to which products to place and where to place them. In the past, these need to be explored step by step. But now there are many tools for us to refer to. The high-tech enterprise Jingpin Hi Tech has developed a unique AIoT cloud platform. With the big data analysis system of the operation and maintenance system, we can timely adjust the sales of products and make replenishment and replacement, realize the one-stop inventory management and maintenance of the whole link, effectively accelerate the turnover of goods, and help increase the efficiency.
Finally, at the scene end of the consumer market, in addition to the hospital (mainly the automatic mask machine or the drug vending machine), which is just in need, most of the vending machine scenes are retail consumption scenes, so guiding consumers to make decisions is the top priority. For example, Bubble Mart will place a giant doll nearly one person tall next to its vending machine, while Pepsi Cola will directly use the light box to advertise, which can effectively guide consumers to consume.
More importantly, at this stage, there are still many vending machines in China that exist in a "single point" state. Their data are not interconnected, and even the data of different models of the same vending machine operating company are not interconnected, which increases the difficulty of operation and management. In the future, the networking and intelligent transformation of vending machines will become the main theme. Through the evolution from "point" to "surface", the operation efficiency will be improved, and there will be more room for imagination in the business model.