The world's first unmanned coffee shop was unveiled in Beijing and sold for 280 yuan in two hours.

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On September 1, "Friendship drink Bar" was unveiled in the University of International Business and Economics (hereinafter referred to as Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation). Officially, this is the first unmanned coffee shop in the world.

With regard to this store, there are still many official definitions: "the first unmanned coffee machine with integral ice-making and instant ice crushing, the first unmanned coffee machine with intelligent robotic arm, the first unmanned coffee machine with trickle extraction technology, and the first unmanned coffee machine with horizontal wall-breaking technology."

Unmanned convenience stores are in a period of intense explosion, and historically, as long as they are related to the concept of "unmanned", there is no lack of attention. But this friendly drink bar appears to be very low-key, as of yesterday, there are not many reports on the Internet.

The "Retail Boss Internal reference" reporter recently experienced it on the spot and stayed in the store for three hours, hoping to unveil its mystery for everyone.

Let's start with the conclusion: the model of the unmanned coffee shop is novel, but the experience is not satisfactory.

Three machines, one clerk.

Let's first introduce the location of the University of International Business and Economics, which is located near the North fourth Ring Road and three stops away from the Beichen Business Circle of the Asian Games Village. The surrounding fast food snacks are complete, there is a coffee shop opposite the main entrance of the campus to accompany you and the book bar, and there is a coffee shop on the island at the intersection one kilometer away from the school.

As a national key university which is good at foreign languages, compared with other universities, one of the major characteristics of the University of Foreign Trade and Economics is that the campus area is too small, which is conducive to the gathering of people.

The friendly drink bar is located in Hongyuan, the only girls' dormitory in foreign trade and economic cooperation, next to the stadium. This dormitory building has a long history and is said to be the largest conjoined dormitory in Asia. Several students at the school told the Retail Boss Internal staff that more than 10,000 female students live here.

In addition, due to the open environment of the campus, when night falls, parents from nearby communities often take their children to the stadium for a walk.

What is clear is that in foreign trade and economic cooperation, apart from the teaching area, this is the place with the largest daily flow of people.

The drink bar is backed by Hongyuan Building, facing south and north, with transparent glass walls on three sides. From the outside, the layout of the bar can be seen at a glance-a long table, two wooden high chairs, a row full of green plants, and two ordinary glass doors, but there is no high-tech such as facial scanning in other unmanned stores. In addition, although it is known as the "24-hour unmanned coffee bar", there is actually an employee on duty in the shop, which mainly helps to purchase and maintain order in the store.

An employee is on duty in the store.

The area of the bar is small, roughly estimated to be about 10 square meters. Due to the abundant lighting, the overall light in the bar is bright. The protagonists are two unmanned coffee machines, one left and one right on display side by side. Between the two coffee machines, there is a four-story simple bookshelf with coffee beans of different roasting degrees on the upper two floors and some books on the lower two floors for people to read. The staff told the reporter that coffee beans and books were only displayed for customers to experience.

In-store display

The core products are three machines, including two unmanned coffee machines and a fruit and vegetable dessert cabinet. According to the staff in the store, the two coffee machines belong to the new and old versions, with roughly the same product types and similar functions. The Retail Boss Internal reference reporter found that the old version offered about 17 kinds of drinks, including 12 kinds of coffee, 1 kind of black tea, 1 kind of milk tea, 2 kinds of milk tea and 1 kind of chocolate, all priced between 9.9 yuan and 16.9 yuan. The latest machine on the right offers 20 drinks with similar product composition and price. Fresh cabinets provide self-service sales of pastries, fruits and other products, including chocolate pie, Tira Misu, Heidi, red dates, oranges, apples and so on.

Old coffee machine drink menu

The specific purchase process of the unmanned coffee machine is as follows: select the corresponding drink type on the screen-select coffee beans, sugar and milk-Wechat / Alipay scan payment-and wait for pick-up. If you order a cold drink, there will be ice slipping on the spot. After all the production is completed, the guest is required to manually remove the drink from the window.

Guests can customize the amount of coffee and milk

The sales volume is good, but the experience is not satisfactory.

At 19:00 on September 4th, the Retail Boss Internal reference reporter arrived at the store and made rough statistics on the sales of the bar. Between 7: 00 and 9: 00, about 77 people entered the store, most of whom were students of the school and a few parents of the off-campus community, who bought about 21 drinks and a cake with a unit price of 2.5 yuan. Based on the average unit price of 13.4 yuan for drinks, the revenue in two hours is about 283.5 yuan.

Business situation of friendly drink bar from 19:00 to 21:00 on September 4th (rough)

Careful readers will find that between 20:00 and 21:00, despite a big increase in the number of people entering the store, the actual number of consumption has not increased. The "Retail owner Internal reference" reporter consulted some of the students who entered the store but did not buy it, which can be roughly divided into the following three categories:

First, have no intention to buy, just out of curiosity, take a casual look

Second, did not see the beverage price menu, do not want to buy rashly

Third, the price of cakes is a little expensive, go to the nearby supermarket to buy.

The menu interface of the new unmanned coffee machine, you can see the price only after you choose it.

So how does the person who bought the coffee feel? The Retail Boss Internal reference randomly consulted more than 10 students who bought coffee within two hours, and the feedback was as follows:

First, most students are complaining that there is no coffee lid, only one straw

About half of the students reported that the price and taste of coffee were OK, and half reported that the taste of coffee was very light.

Third, some students feedback that the price of coffee does not feel that there is too much discount.

For the friendly drink bar, I believe that the first two problems can be easily solved, but the students are more sensitive to the price of the bar than the author expected.

After in-depth understanding, the "Retail Boss Internal reference" reporter believes that the competitive pressure of friendly drink bar is not small, and the development is in doubt. According to a junior student of the university, there are 4 or 5 small coffee bars on the foreign trade and economic cooperation campus, and there is also a Wumart supermarket about 500 meters away from the friendly drink bar. There are not a few milk tea shops and coffee shops outside the campus, and there are many options for students. In addition, there are many foreign economic and trade students, who are heavy consumers of coffee, but the activity areas of foreign students are mostly on the west side of foreign trade and economic cooperation, so it is difficult for friendly drink bars to reach this group.

In addition, according to the feedback from the students of the school, due to the well-developed takeout, many female students will buy coffee and milk tea online by splicing orders, and the price is not very high, but the weight will be more than that of a friendly drink bar. "the students in our school have a good taste and are used to it by nearby businesses." A junior told the Retail Boss Internal reference reporter.

It is not the coffee bar that is unmanned, but the coffee machine!

At about 21:20, the "Retail owner Internal Counsellor" reporter was surprised to find that the staff of the store had begun to move chairs, billboards, buckets and other materials outside the bar into the store one after another, and there seemed to be signs of closing. After asking the clerk, the reporter learned that he was indeed preparing to close the door. "as you can see, there are very few students at this time," the clerk replied when asked by the reporter about the reason for closing.

With regard to the case of unmanned convenience stores, the Retail owner Internal reference has made a series of reports. Although there are many differences in technology, front-end display and manual watch, 24-hour operation is almost standard in the industry, but the "24-hour unmanned coffee bar" featured in friendly drinks bars does not achieve 24-hour business as described in official account.

"doesn't it say 24 hours a day? Why are they all closed? " A student who passed by after closing complained to his companion.

After the friendly drink bar closed, a passer-by lay in front of the door.

In this regard, the person in charge of the friendly drink bar responded to the "Retail Boss Internal reference" reporter that the store of foreign trade and economic cooperation has just been built and is understaffed, so it is difficult to achieve 24-hour operation. This unmanned coffee bar mainly carries display, publicity and other functions in the early stage, and the normal business hours are from 9 a.m. to 11:00, and then the unmanned coffee machine stationed in Hongyuan Building will be unmanned 24 hours a day.

It is worth mentioning that the unmanned coffee maker of the friendly bar is not the first time it has been put on the market. According to the above people, the friendly drink bar has launched about 400 unmanned coffee machines across the country, mainly in crowded areas such as schools and shopping malls. And the product model is the same, and the type of drinks will be updated regularly.

"Retail boss internal reference" reporter believes that the friendly drink bar's "24-hour unmanned coffee bar" is not a strict 24-hour operation, does not rule out the suspicion of following the trend, can only be called an unmanned coffee machine. From the unmanned convenience store project that has appeared at this stage, there is still a lot of gap at the technical level.

In addition, according to the "Retail Boss Internal reference" reporter's observation, the vast majority of consumers who come to the coffee bar choose to take out rather than spend immediately in the store. Under such circumstances, what is the difference between setting up a coffee bar and setting up a coffee machine?. It's also worth watching.

A coffee practitioner also questioned the "Retail Boss Internal reference" reporter. Judging from the above-mentioned "two-hour sales", the business situation seems to be good. However, considering that it has just launched the market, as well as rent, fire protection, food and drug supervision and other issues, whether the bar's business model can take shape remains to be seen.