It closes after five days of opening! The first unmanned coffee shop in Beijing is withdrawn. What on earth do they want to do?

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On September 7, the first unmanned coffee shop in Beijing, which attracted attention, was withdrawn for only five days, and the popularity of the period can be seen from a fact:

The raw materials of a self-service coffee machine are replenished twice a day, while unmanned coffee shops need to be replenished every half an hour during the five days of operation. This hot scene can also be seen in photos of other media-the coffee shop at the University of International Business and Economics has maintained a queue.

With such a hot storefront and the popular concept of "unmanned shop", why did you withdraw the store?

Zhang Yang, the "operator" behind the unmanned coffee shop, exclusively responded to the Pintu business review: after several days of operation, the unmanned shop model has been proved to work. These days, the operation is to test the scene, "the single unmanned coffee vending machine does not have the scene to sit down and chat." In addition, the fourth-generation machine of Youyin Coffee Machine, the main equipment of Beijing's first unmanned coffee shop, has been tested. Compared with the third-generation machine, the main technology of the fourth-generation machine has been upgraded to a mechanical arm. "this test proves that the user experience of the fourth generation is better than that of the third generation."

Coffee consumption potential is huge.

Zhang Yang, who has a technical background, has been working in the retail industry, and he is also a deep coffee user. When he decided to make a friendly coffee machine, he conducted a series of research.

In Beijing's 711 flagship store, coffee accounts for about 60% of the total, making it the highest-selling item in a convenience store. According to global data, the average person in Finland, Switzerland, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan consumes only 4 cups per year. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other big cities consume an average of only 20 cups per person per year. There is huge room for growth.

China's coffee market is still in its infancy, and the annual coffee consumption in China is only 200000 tons. For the Chinese, after all, people who drink coffee every day are still in the minority, and for the vast majority of consumers, it is not a necessity of life. However, with the rise of the new consumer class, China's coffee industry has maintained a rapid development. According to the London International Coffee Organization, compared with the global average growth rate of 2%, China's coffee consumption is growing at an astonishing rate of 15% a year, and is expected to become the most potential coffee consumer in the world.

In such an environment, Zhang Yang believes that Chinese people's habit of drinking coffee will gradually improve, reaching 40 or even 80 cups per person per year. In addition to the existing consumption scenarios, the new coffee consumption scenarios will also become the main force driving coffee consumption.

According to Starbucks' results for the second quarter of fiscal 2017, same-store sales in the global and US markets rose 3 per cent, below Wall Street analysts' expectations, but same-store sales in China rose 7 per cent. Although Starbucks is growing at a rate of 500 stores a year in China, it is actually growing regionally, especially in near-saturated first-tier cities, where there is an urgent need to expand other consumption scenarios outside the Starbucks chain.

The future coffee consumption scene in addition to chain coffee shops, convenience stores, mom-and-pop stores and unmanned coffee machines and other new consumption scenes will also become mainstream. Especially on campus or in public places where Starbucks is not available, the unmanned coffee maker for friendly drinks is combined with the existing environment in the school or office building to create a coffee scene.

Zhang Yang told Pintu Business Review: "the unit price of friendly drinks is about 35% of that of Starbucks. Friendly drinks are different from Starbucks. They are also learning from Starbucks in customer service and coffee production. Friendly drinks will definitely not become Starbucks." but Starbucks can't be a friendly drink either. "

The original intention of making an unmanned coffee machine

Zhang Yang, who has a background in the retail industry, believes that the customer acquisition costs, manpower and rent costs of physical retailing are inevitable. He hopes that there is a format that can overcome these costs, and this format will not be excessively replaced by e-commerce. So I thought of self-service equipment.

After finding such a single point of entry, from the consumer's point of view, Zhang Yang said: "Coffee is a big sales item from 2pm to 5pm every day. Since consumers can accept half an hour of takeout downstairs to pick up the order, then it is more acceptable to spend a minute in front of the unmanned coffee machine to make a cup of freshly ground coffee."

At present, the coffee bought in convenience stores is instant, but the demand for freshly ground coffee is on the rise. in Europe and the United States, the proportion of freshly ground and unground coffee is 4:1, but in China, the proportion of freshly ground coffee and non-ground coffee is 1:4.

A cup of freshly ground coffee can volatilize more than 70% of its fragrance in 2 minutes, while take-out coffee takes 15-30 minutes at the earliest. If consumers are particularly interested in quality, unmanned coffee machines can replace this deficiency. Zhang Yang said: "making an unmanned coffee machine may not necessarily have a great breakthrough in business, but it is of great significance."

Zhang Yang said that at present, Youyin has installed hundreds of coffee machines in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Dalian and Shandong, each of which can make more than 100 cups of coffee.

In the 10-square-meter storefront of the first unmanned coffee shop in Beijing, there are the third-generation unmanned coffee machine and the fourth-generation unmanned coffee machine. 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. According to their own needs, they can set the milk sugar ratio, hot and cold temperature, etc., and enter the payment link after setting. The price of the drink is between 9.9 yuan and 15.9 yuan. There are two forms of payment: Wechat or Alipay. after the payment is completed, you can see the robotic arm in the machine to start making 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.

After this attempt by the University of International Business and Economics, Zhang Yang told the Pintu Business Review: "the proportion of sales of third-generation and fourth-generation phones is 1:3. It can be seen that consumers are more willing to pay for the ice technology of the robotic arm, the double material box technology and the trickling filtration technology."

Zhang Yang also summed up the time period of consumer consumption. Judging from the use of the original unmanned coffee machine, the general sales situation is "higher in the afternoon, the second in the morning, and the worst in the evening." but after the construction of the unmanned coffee bar, it may be due to the attraction of glass, lighting, books and other equipment. The effect of selling coffee at night is quite ideal.

According to the rough statistics of the sales of the unmanned coffee bar by the relevant media, between 7: 00 and 9: 00, about 77 people entered the shop, most of them were students of the school and a small number of parents in the off-campus community 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.

The unmanned coffee machine spells technology.

In fact, on the Taobao Festival in July this year, coffee is sold in Ali's unmanned retail store "Amoy Coffee". The store will cover an area of 200 square meters, combine shopping and catering, and can accommodate 50 people at the same time according to the current design.

A common practice of unmanned retail stores is that in a closed space, consumers need all kinds of registrations for entry. But in the unmanned coffee shop of Youyin, Zhang Yang advocates "open the door to do business". Consumers do not need to scan the code to register, they only need Wechat or Alipay to scan the code to complete the purchase. The technology of Youyin unmanned coffee shop is relatively simple, and Zhang Yang emphasizes the technical iteration of the unmanned coffee machine itself.

In addition, unlike the self-service vending machine Youbao, the coffee machine needs to be made on the spot and sold in time. In fact, it is a small workshop.

Zhang Yang said: if you want to make a good cup of coffee and run through the industry, first, you must have good technology and equipment, second, you must have good ingredients, and third, you must have good operation. Friendly drink in technology, from the coffee grinding, blending, fresh-keeping, ice, to cope with consumer taste changes, have done a lot of optimization.

The third generation of Youyin uses piping technology, which is not good in terms of user experience. The upgraded fourth-generation machine uses a mechanical arm to achieve accurate operation in terms of time, materials and dosage. There are two robotic arms in each machine, one holding a cup to pick up milk, coffee and sugar, and the second robotic arm is more fully stirred with air.

The cost of the upgraded fourth-generation coffee machine is much higher than that of the third-generation coffee machine. Zhang Yang revealed: "the purchasing cost of the fourth-generation robotic arm coffee machine is between 60,000 and 80,000. The third-generation coffee machine is cheaper, and the price is about 30,000 to 40,000. If you choose the right place and put it in the right place, each machine can return to the cost in a few months. Although the cost of the fourth generation coffee machine is higher than that of the third generation, it is an one-time investment, which actually reduces the later operation investment, and the failure rate is reduced by 95% or even higher. "

After receiving the needs of consumers, the server begins to carry out real-time monitoring, and the remote server will receive instructions within a second after each cup is bought, as well as the operation analysis system, based on which the device can make personalized analysis of each machine. Zhang Yang said that the future can be based on individual personalized design, similar to the personalized customization of Taobao and Jinri Toutiao.

The tuyere of an unmanned coffee machine

China's coffee market is about 70 billion yuan, and the ratio of instant, ready-to-drink and current grinding is about 7:2:1, and the proportion is gradually increasing with the increase of per capita GDP. According to the previous report of 36 krypton, traditional cafes have some problems, such as overweight asset structure, large upfront investment, high operating cost, long profit cycle and so on, which do not meet the preference of VC, while automatic coffee vending machines have the advantages of small size, easy to roll out and relatively short profit cycle, so they gradually get capital attention.

In addition to the above friendly drinks, there is also a Guangzhou e-Le drink unmanned coffee machine, in addition to freshly ground coffee, but also sells cold drinks, herbal tea and other drinks, coffee is priced at about 10 yuan, drinks for about 8 yuan. The machine used in E-Le drink adopts Swiss grinding technology and has the function of automatic cleaning and disinfection. The machine makes a cup of freshly ground coffee for about 40 seconds.

In fact, unmanned vending machines are not new in China. They have existed for 20 years and are distributed in many subways, shopping malls or residential areas. In addition, traditional baby-grabbing machines and unmanned drinking fountains are essentially unmanned self-service equipment.

Wu Shichun, an angel of plum blossoms, said: "when the four dimensions of trend, cost, efficiency and experience reach a critical point in an industry, they become the key to unmanned retail."

Nowadays, unmanned coffee machine has become a new trend in unmanned retail, while unmanned coffee machine enterprises are more concerned about the coffee machine's own technology and the quality it can bring to consumers. As Zhang Yang said, "only technology can guarantee quality." and quality can retain consumers. "