The unmanned coffee shop is really coming! How should coffee shopkeepers deal with it?

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In early July today, Jack Ma launched a new concept of unmanned coffee shop "Amoy Coffee" on Taobao Festival, which led to a wave of new unmanned retail. (portal: the latest operation of Jack Ma's poop)

If Jack Ma's "Amoy Coffee" is just a gimmick with no one to check out, it has nothing to do with the coffee industry at all, then it has just been two months, and on September 2, the Friendship Bar, the world's first unmanned coffee shop that really sells coffee, does the official opening of the Beijing University of International Business and Economics represent a formal charge launched by unmanned business against the coffee industry?

An unmanned coffee shop called "friendly drink Bar" has just opened at Beijing University of International Business and Economics.

What's an unmanned coffee shop like?

The unmanned coffee shop is located downstairs in Hongyuan, not far from the playground, with an area of about 10 square meters. the coffee shop is equipped with two self-service coffee machines and a snack vending machine, as well as some tables and chairs, green plants, books and so on. The operator behind the unmanned coffee shop is Beijing Yinbuer Technology Co., Ltd., which mainly develops self-service coffee machine equipment.

Environment

In the "friendly drink Bar", there are glass rooms, wooden tables and chairs, green plants, large menu screens, freshly ground coffee and pastries. Compared with the traditional coffee shop, only "no waiter, barista" is different, the real realization of no one.

Service

There are two self-service coffee machines in the shop. Customers can choose more than 20 kinds of drinks such as latte, American coffee, milk tea and cocoa on the coffee machine panel according to their own preferences, and can set the proportion of milk sugar and hot and cold temperature according to their own needs. After setting, you will enter the payment link. The price of the drink is between 9.9 yuan and 15.9 yuan, and there are two payment forms: Wechat or Alipay. After the payment is completed, you can see that the robotic arm in the machine begins to make drinks. The whole process from ordering to getting the product takes only a few minutes, which is easy to understand and does not need the help of an extra waiter.

Manufacturing process

Youyin unmanned coffee robot creatively realizes the flexible beverage making process. The so-called flexible production process means that the customer matches the taste independently, which is the core technology of the fourth-generation coffee robot. At the beginning of each cup of coffee, customers can set the amount of coffee beans, milk, sugar and so on independently, which is a powerful overall control system to achieve a perfect combination from the user interface to the production of equipment.

The whole production process is full of a sense of technology and the future, you can see a robot holding an empty paper cup into the line of sight, under the glass bottle to pick up coffee, milk mouth to pick up hot milk. The other manipulator is put into the glass and stirred. After adding ice, the window opens automatically, and the manipulator sends a cup of ice latte to you from the window. The whole process is like a science fiction scene, like a robot making coffee on the spot.

Product quality

In terms of quality, Youyin unmanned coffee robot is on a par with high quality in terms of raw materials and services. For example, the raw materials are imported, such as illy imported coffee beans, pure dairy raw materials, Sri Lankan Ceylon black tea. In the production process, grinding bean components and brewing technology are the world's top, to achieve the balance of fine particles and fragrance retention, more than 30 processes automatically linked up, can achieve dozens of seconds from grinding beans to the end of brewing.

As for the "current grinding" concept of the current popular signboard, it is even more impossible to stop the unmanned coffee shop. The unmanned coffee robot has leading technologies such as horizontal wall-breaking grinding, double coffee bean box matching, air mixing, closed glass trickling extraction, dry-wet separation, mechanical arm three-dimensional air walk, and so on. Unmanned coffee shops even have more advantages than some manual products in terms of product quality.

Operation

In operation, from the previous independent operation to the remote management of the Internet of things, remote network control can be realized; secondly, it can also be intelligent in operation, such as out-of-stock early warning, replenishment early warning, and so on. Fully automated and intelligent operation will greatly reduce management costs and improve operational efficiency.

The advantages of unmanned coffee shops

one

Reduce the cost

With the disappearance of China's demographic dividend, labor costs began to rise rapidly, with Chinese employees' salaries rising by an average of 8 per cent and overall rents rising by 7 per cent in 2016. The rising rental costs and high labor costs have become two big mountains hindering profitability.

Unmanned coffee shops do not need waiters, saving staff costs; moreover, unmanned coffee shops buy and leave, so that they do not need a venue or only a very small venue, but also save the cost of the venue. These cost savings, in turn, can benefit users. Judging from the "Friendship Bar" unmanned coffee shop of the University of International Business and Economics, the price is very competitive. The cheapest coffee is 9.9 yuan, and the expensive one is more than ten yuan, which is a great bargain compared with Starbucks' price of about 30 yuan.

two

Service simplicity

To some extent, unmanned coffee shop subverts the service concept held by the traditional service industry, and goes straight to the core of commodity trading by cutting off unnecessary communication and communication links. At the same time, the needs of modern consumers are becoming simpler and simpler, and they want to seek simpler and more cost-effective services. There is no doubt that the emergence of unmanned coffee shops secretly caters to such a group of consumers who are not interested in "unnecessary" social interaction.

three

Individuation

Unmanned coffee shop, in addition to affordable prices, the technology is very cool, to be able to DIY is also a major feature to attract personalized, technology-conscious young users. Customers can choose the proportion of coffee beans, milk and sugar, and then watch their own coffee made step by step, itself is not a very comfortable thing?

four

There is much room for imagination.

For the service providers of unmanned coffee shops such as Youyin, there is a lot of room for imagination. In addition to the income from equipment rental and food supply, advertising revenue and the user value of coffee sales are also a gold mine that can be tapped.

The disadvantages of unmanned coffee shops

one

Complex location

Unmanned coffee shops, compared with traditional coffee shops, the radiation range will be smaller, usually random transactions, in order to reach more users, unmanned coffee shops often need to open in places with dense flow of people and high rent. These places are bound to become competitive places, followed by a rise in rental costs.

two

Difficulties in operation and later maintenance

The door of an unmanned coffee shop must be fully open. Even with camera monitoring equipment and other anti-theft systems, coffee machines, the main valuable assets of the coffee shop, do not have to worry too much about theft, but other table and chair equipment in the absence of monitoring and management may be difficult to avoid damage, messy environment and other consequences.

In terms of operating costs, although the unmanned coffee shop reduces the traditional in-store costs, the later operation and maintenance costs will not be reduced.

three

Poor experience, easy to copy.

Unmanned coffee shop equipment because of the lack of personnel management and maintenance, in the case of low national quality, it is very easy to destroy related equipment, at the same time, the homogenization of products is high, can not form product barriers, if there is no service to reflect differences, it is difficult to stand out.

four

Big competition, high investment, outbreak of difficulties

If an unmanned coffee shop wants to make a profit, it must have enough frequency, not only a large flow, but also a suitable scene, which is mostly concentrated in shopping malls, schools, subway entrances, and near office buildings. BD costs are high and the location is limited. Once it is rolled out on a large scale, the cost will certainly rise further under competition.

At the same time, slow expansion is the key that many investors do not like. For unmanned coffee shops, even if they enter the market for free, they need to negotiate one by one, and the cycle of laying equipment is longer.

If large-scale investment, although it can improve the entry efficiency, but the capital requirements are large, it is difficult to form a scale, which is not conducive to small and medium-sized VC investment.

Summary

There is no doubt that this "humble" friend drink bar unmanned coffee shop is just a test of the coffee industry by unmanned business. Behind it represents the coveting of the coffee industry by service providers such as automatic selling, automatic production and unmanned retail.

How to improve their own services and ensure their own quality, on the one hand, to build their own brand advantages, to establish competitive barriers, on the other hand, combined with new thinking, with different ways of experience to attract consumers. Once again, this subject is naked in front of many coffee colleagues.

Whether it can cope with the impact of "unmanned business", stabilize the current customer base and keep their jobs is a question that even giants as big as Starbucks have to deal with cautiously.

If anyone dares to despise the limelight, he will have to pay a heavy price.