Abstract: with the gradual maturity of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine vision, as well as the leading domestic and global mobile payment situation, the new retail represented by unmanned retail has attracted the attention of major e-commerce platforms and well-known brands.Unmanned stores have become a new trend in the global retail industry. Ali and other traditional retail giants have begun to try the unmanned store model, and some small and medium-sized start-ups have also made a figure by virtue of their leading artificial intelligence technology in the industry.After bike sharing, unmanned shops are expected to be the next explosive new business.

I. overview of unmanned retail industry

In the narrow sense, unmanned retail refers to the unattended part of physical retail, which is mainly composed of open shelves, vending machines, unmanned convenience stores and unmanned supermarkets, among which unmanned supermarket is mainly in the stage of internal test and has not been rolled out on a large scale.The main body of unmanned retail is concentrated in open shelves, vending machines and unmanned convenience stores.Although no one is on duty, the management behind still needs someone, but the role of the person has changed, the front-end personnel is mainly responsible for the distribution, sorting and cleaning.Current unmanned retail can be "unmanned" (unattended), "small" (a small number of administrators), or flexible switching.

With the gradual maturity of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine vision, as well as the leading domestic and global mobile payment situation, new retail represented by unmanned retail has attracted the attention of major e-commerce platforms and well-known brands.Unmanned stores have become a new trend in the global retail industry. Ali and other traditional retail giants have begun to try the unmanned store model, and some small and medium-sized start-ups have also made a figure by virtue of their leading artificial intelligence technology in the industry.After bike sharing, unmanned shops are expected to be the next explosive new business.

The industry most closely related to the unmanned retail store industry is its upstream industry.The upstream of unmanned retail store industry is mainly information technology industry, intelligent transportation industry, retail product industry (daily necessities, food, etc.), etc.In recent years, the technology update of the upstream industry of unmanned retail stores has been accelerating.

Ii. Status quo of unmanned retail industry

Overall weak, in recent years, Chinas traditional retail industry transition is imminent, "retail" as a new retail under the exploration of new formats, not only can save land and labor costs, can will infiltrate into Peoples Daily sales scenario, the fragmentation of consumption to obtain corresponding consumption data so as to accurately grasp the user requirements, layout and emerging channels, such as brands and distributors to provide reference for supply chain end, realize the benign ecological circulation.

In 2017, the size of Chinas unmanned retail market was 19.79 billion yuan, of which the annual sales of vending machines was 17.34 billion yuan and the sales of open shelves was 310 million yuan.The sales scale of unmanned convenience stores is about 0.5 billion yuan, and it is expected that the scale of unmanned retail market in China will increase to 65.7 billion yuan by 2020.The main scene distribution of unmanned retail includes community, subway and other transportation hubs, office buildings, shopping malls, offices and so on.

Unmanned retail is an innovative mode that relies on vending machines, shelves, convenience stores and other business models to achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement.The reason why this new consumption mode is so popular is not only the policy support for the transformation and innovation of retail formats, but also the strategic layout changes of all parties involved, as well as the driving force of consumer demand changes.On the other hand, the high popularity of mobile payment, the rapid development of intelligent technology and the favor of capital have become the external driving force for the development of unmanned retail industry.No one retail industry segmentation market analysis

(1) smart vending machine

Intelligent vending machine for online way, through the wireless network, the Internet and Internet of things the inventory within the vending machine and other information in a timely manner to the backend server computer service center, thus real-time monitoring equipment goods and money in the stock situation and equipment running status, ensure the delivery of goods and supplement and money back and the smooth and efficient operation.

Different from ordinary vending machines, intelligent vending machines use reverse O2O mode.When consumers buy goods, they can not only pay in cash, but also pay with alipay, WeChat wallet and even campus card.Smart vending machine truly realizes the convenient self-service marketing of "no cash, online order, offline delivery".

As the main business form of unmanned retail industry in China at present, the sales market scale of vending machines in China in 2016 was 16.84 billion yuan, accounting for 98.8% of the total size of unmanned retail market in China in the same period.In 2017, the sales market of vending machines will reach 19.34 billion yuan.It is estimated that Chinas vending machine market will reach 48.45 billion yuan by 2020.

(2) open shelves

In 2016, Chinas unmanned shelf sales market size was 180 million yuan, accounting for 1.06% of the total size of the domestic unmanned retail market in the same period.In 2017, the sales market scale of unmanned shelves is about 310 million yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 72.22%. It is expected that the sales market scale of unmanned shelves will reach 13.99 billion yuan by 2020.

(3) unmanned convenience stores

As a whole, unmanned stores are still in their infancy at present, with a low coverage rate. Only 16.5% of retail users have used unmanned stores.Most of the unmanned shops mainly provide snacks, drinks and other standard goods and convenience emergency goods, and some of the unmanned shops also provide fresh food, fresh food, food and other categories.Due to the influence of technology, space and other factors, it is difficult for unmanned stores to sell all kinds of goods at present. The most suitable scene is the community convenience store.

At present, the unmanned convenience stores have been piloted in developed cities such as north, Shanghai, guangzhou and shenzhen, and the exploration of unmanned convenience stores in China has been in full bloom.The application of unmanned convenience stores in technology determines the store scale, operation ability, shopping process and cost input to a certain extent.

Currently, unmanned convenience stores can be roughly divided into three types in terms of technology. The first one is typical of Amazon Go and Take Go, which can realize "Take away" shopping experience. It USES machine vision, deep learning algorithm, sensor fusion technology, convolutional neural network, biometrics and other cutting-edge technologies in the field of artificial intelligence.However, the stability of this kind of technology is not guaranteed, and the cost is too expensive, so it is difficult to use commercially.

The second refers to the bean fruit box, 7-11 mainly using RFID technology and face recognition technology such as unmanned convenience store, RFID more advantages in the recognition of the goods and guard against theft, the technique, appeared one hundred years, with mature technology, costs are falling, but because of RFID tags like qr code, if stick on the outside of the goods, easy to be torn up.

The third is the convenience bee and small e micro store, which mainly use two-dimensional code to complete the identification of goods. With low cost and close proximity to traditional retail, the advantages of such unmanned convenience stores may be more reflected in channels and supply chains.

Unmanned convenience stores mainly radiate to communities and business districts, etc., which are mainly calculated based on community service centers (stations). By the end of 2017, there are about 200 unmanned convenience stores in the unmanned retail market.In 2017, the market size of unmanned convenience stores will be about 50 million yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 66.67%. It is estimated that the market size of unmanned convenience stores in China will reach 3.3 billion yuan by 2020.

Iii. Opportunities and challenges for the development of unmanned retail industry

1. Industry opportunities

(1) the state actively guides innovative retail development

On November 11, 2016, the state council issued "opinions about promoting entity retail innovation transformation, and put forward the" innovation and development, encourage enterprises to innovation management mechanism, organization form, the innovation service experience ", "promoting cross-border integration, promote online convergence", in November 2017 China chain made the unattended store operating guidelines, provide reference for accelerating landing of unmanned retail concept.The 13th five-year plan for the development of domestic trade circulation promotes the innovation and transformation of real business, improves the level of supply of circulation, promotes the upgrading of consumption structure, improves the level of informatization of circulation, and strengthens the construction of standardization of circulation.The state is actively guiding and promoting the rapid development of new retail, bringing new opportunities for the development of unmanned retail.

(2) the development potential of unmanned retail industry is huge

In November 2017, the 2017 China retail conference hosted by China association of chain stores concluded in chongqing. "unmanned retail" became the focus of the conference.According to relevant data statistics, Chinas convenience store industry annual sales of nearly 160 billion yuan, the number of stores more than 6 million, the annual compound growth rate of the industry reached 13%, the size of the industry, clear business model, adequate talent and technology reserves, capital market recognition, leading the development of the unmanned retail industry.With the gradual improvement of technology and business model, unmanned retail is bound to become the main force of new retail in the future.

2. Industry challenges

(1) vague policy supervision standards

Unmanned convenience stores are generally put into hundreds or thousands of places. Obviously, the application for permission of the existing convenience stores cannot meet the practical needs of the rapid expansion of unmanned convenience stores.Many unmanned convenience stores have encountered difficulties in opening stores, which have been rectified or closed down due to problems such as operating beyond their scope, incomplete procedures and illegal construction.At the same time, the industry is in the early stage of development, and its scale, technology and form have not yet taken shape. The management method of issuing mandatory laws and regulations in a short term is not applicable, and unmanned retail urgently needs the support of relevant policies and competent departments.

(2) fierce competition

Unmanned retail outlets, many enterprises rush forward, unmanned convenience stores, unmanned shelves, vending machines and other terminal forms of disorderly competition.In order to realize the pursuit of profit scale, and scale requires capital support, the boundary between burning money and realization becomes blurred.From 100, 50 to 30 people, the number of unattended shelves in enterprises has been lowered again and again, from first-tier cities to second-tier cities, from second-tier cities to third-tier and fourth-tier cities.Startups expand blindly.

Iv. Development trend of unmanned retail industry

1. Development of cutting-edge technologies

With the rapid development of cutting-edge technologies, the mobile payment/big data credit investigation lays the foundation for the Internet of things and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. The Internet of things is the Internet connected to things, which is realized by connecting objects to the Internet through sensors, and then passing object information and data to the Internet terminal manager through this network.Currently, common sensor equipment includes radio frequency identification (RFID), infrared sensors, global positioning system, laser scanner, etc., of which radio frequency identification is the equipment and technology used by most unmanned retail stores in commodity identification and settlement.With the continuous development of technology and the support of national policies, it is expected that Chinas Internet of things industry will continue to grow rapidly, which provides a technical basis for the realization of unmanned retail stores.

Artificial intelligence refers to the technical means of imitating human thinking mode through algorithm and applying it to the calculation and analysis of realistic scenes, mainly including machine vision recognition, deep learning, big data, cloud computing and other categories.The research of artificial intelligence in China started early, and now the number of published papers and scientists has been in the forefront of the world.The development of artificial intelligence technology makes it possible to "take and go" unmanned retail stores.

2. Popularization of mobile payment means

Thanks to the popularity of smart phones and the convenience of online payment, Chinese consumers have gradually become accustomed to using online payment tools in different scenes of daily life, and more and more merchants and public services have begun to support mobile payment.According to the 2016 national bill data of alipay, in the past year, more than 1 billion people used the convenient services of alipay to pay utilities, traffic fines, hospital appointment registration and other daily payment activities.The cashless payment method saves consumers the process of withdrawing money, receiving and cashiers change, improves the efficiency of daily affairs, and avoids the theft of cash, saves the process of cash collection and inventory, and lays a foundation for the unmanned retail model.

3. Credit investigation of big data is gradually improved

In January 2015, the central bank issued the notice on the preparation of personal credit investigation business, which required eight pilot commercial credit investigation institutions, including sesame credit and tencent credit investigation institutions, to prepare for personal credit investigation business, marking the gradual entry of big data credit investigation into the commercial stage.Different from the traditional credit investigation, the big data credit investigation represented by sesame credit and tencent credit investigation covers a wider and younger population, and the information channels are more inclined to the daily behavior preferences of citizens.As a result, although big data credit investigation is not as authoritative as traditional credit investigation, it can better reflect the behavior and consumption preference of information subjects and is more suitable for the daily consumption, public service, transfer and other small amount transactions of residents.Unmanned retailers can obtain citizens credit data and assess whether they have the qualification to enter stores by contacting such credit investigation agencies, so as to prevent theft cases to a certain extent.

Credit sesame, for example, as the ant gold suit by a third party credit bureaus, credit sesame to ali electricity transaction data, public security and other public institutions as well as partner data as the foundation, credit CARDS and consumer lending, hotel, travel, life expends medical health and scene credit service support, in the evaluation of consumer behavior, credit, small money between us has a wide range of applications.Users can apply for various services by virtue of sesame score. Meanwhile, sesame credit constantly updates users credit score and improves the database through user loan renewal and online transaction behavior data.In the application scenario of unmanned retail stores, when consumers enter the store, they bind their personal sesame credit status to the background management system. If consumers tear up labels, steal and other behaviors occur, their sesame credit score will decline, which may lead to their refusal to re-enter by unmanned retail stores.

Text: source rfid world network