Can unmanned coffee machines really bring a lot of profits?

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Coffee has become the darling of the new generation of young people, and the demand for coffee consumption has created a hot market for coffee. Not long ago, Youyin Coffee, an unmanned coffee machine service operator, received 100 million yuan in round A financing led by Huachuang Capital. And financial support from the supply chain of the world's top new retail industry funds. What kind of business is the unmanned coffee machine after capital blessing?

Invisible coffee workshops with the increase in labor costs, the gross profit of offline coffee shops is also decreasing, coupled with the higher requirements of location and capital flow of coffee shops. The unmanned coffee machine can just use a small area of idle space to reach C-end users. "Coffee is a big sales item, and since consumers can accept a takeout order for half an hour, they are more likely to take a minute to make a cup of freshly brewed coffee in front of the drone." Zhang Yang, CEO of friendly drink, explained.

Different from Europe and the United States, ground coffee still belongs to a niche category in the Chinese market, with the proportion of ground coffee and non-ground coffee at 1:4, but among all kinds of beverage products in China, the growth rate of ground coffee drinks is still higher than that of other categories.

Although the unmanned coffee machine wants to cut into the field of freshly ground coffee, in the early stage of research and development, first of all, the taste is not infinitely close to the taste of artificial brewing; the second is hygiene, the unmanned coffee machine is a large confined space, sugar, milk, coffee residues are hotbeds of bacteria, in this invisible field, how to ensure product quality?

Zhang Yang believes that if you want to make a good cup of coffee, you must run through the format. The dryness, purity, bitterness, aroma, acidity and other factors of coffee will affect the quality of coffee, so it needs good technology and equipment, as well as good ingredients and operation.

In order to reduce the failure rate, the new generation of friendly drinks abandons the original built-in pipeline technology and is upgraded to a robotic arm, which switches materials through the manipulator to avoid pipeline blockage caused by milk sugar residues. in order to achieve accurate operation in time, materials and dosage. For example, the two robotic arms in each machine, one is holding a cup to pick up milk, coffee and sugar, and the other is fully fused with air mixing technology.

However, the commercial manipulator is not common before, and its effect is very different from that of the industrial manipulator. At first, the friendly drinks sold dozens of cups a day and could not hold up. "then put everything on the industrial assembly line into the machine first." Zhang Yang says that only when the basic functions are clear can they be gradually simplified. At present, the failure rate of friendly coffee machine is only 0.025%.

Where is the opportunity for an unmanned coffee machine?

By comparing with foreign markets, it is not difficult to find that in the field of unmanned self-help, taking Japanese vending machines as an example, the average annual growth rate of vending machines is 300000. So far, there are more than 6 million terminal devices, with an average of one vending machine for every 25 people. The output value of self-help retail is about 4.7 trillion yen, equivalent to more than 280 billion yuan.

In China, there are only 150000 unmanned vending machines at present. Based on the urban population of 800m, an average of 533 people have one self-service terminal equipment, and the output value of self-service retail is about 100 billion. Self-service coffee machine is still a new industry in China, almost no company is willing to produce it, and most start-ups are too optimistic about the independent research and development level and hardware infrastructure of self-service coffee machine.

For example, for the phenomenon of folding cups, for unmanned coffee machines, whether it is possible to ensure that different cups will not get stuck when stacked together, the equipment can identify what kind of cups, what is the allowable error of the cups, and how the cup mouth is designed, it requires a large number of tests, even so, there is no guarantee that 100% of the cups will not be stacked.

In addition to friendly drinks, in the design and production of unmanned coffee machines, Zhang Yang successively iterated three versions, changed five suppliers, and gradually changed the built-in pipeline to a mechanical arm to avoid pipe contamination. The new iterative version also develops functions such as making ice independently, breaking ice, adding ice to coffee and so on. "it was only after the introduction of the icing function that we gradually opened up the situation."

However, compared with the format of coffee shops, the unmanned coffee self-service machine under the new retail background occupies a smaller area and has lower rent, which can not only effectively reduce labor costs, but also supplement consumption scenarios, such as airports, schools, shopping malls, and so on. Make it contact users frequently and improve the efficiency of use.

Coupled with the maturity of mobile payment technology, according to data, the utilization rate of mobile payment in China has reached 82% in 2017. The convenient payment method allows users to find the products they need in the shortest time and distance. What's more, China's coffee consumption is growing at a rate of 15% a year, far exceeding the average growth rate of 2% in the global market. Whether it is an unmanned coffee machine, a coffee shop, or coffee takeout, there is some room for imagination.

There are still many problems in the unmanned coffee machine, although the unmanned coffee machine can supplement the fragmented consumption scene to some extent, but how to choose the location, how to lay the channel, and how to realize the consumer self-help shopping is the key.

In the choice of points, putting it blindly will only consume more manpower and material resources. In Beijing, for example, the rent for lobbies and other public places is 1000 yuan per month, electricity and water charges are 200 yuan per month, plus depreciation expenses for operation and equipment are estimated to be 1000 yuan. If the gross margin of coffee is calculated at 70%, a point requires monthly sales of more than 3000 yuan to barely reach the equilibrium point.

For example, the early friendly drink did not have the experience of site selection, due to the early planning is not reasonable, one operation and maintenance staff can only be responsible for the operation of 10 machines, the efficiency has not been significantly improved. In the later stage, in the aspects of field investigation, route planning and supply management, an operation and maintenance staff was able to be responsible for the replenishment and cleaning of 40 machines a day.

On the other hand, YouCoffee, which has recently entered the field of self-service coffee machines, relies on nearly 80,000 points operated by Youbao for screening, whether in companies or public places (shopping malls, schools, etc.), the top 30% of the head points will be selected for laying. The choice of city will be screened according to the number of Starbucks and standard convenience stores (7-11, Lawson) in the city.