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After the vent, retail still has to settle accounts.

Unmanned retail was an entrepreneurial “venture” three years ago. There were a variety of unmanned retail projects at one time. Traditionally, vending machines (represented by Youbao), Open unmanned shelves (more convenient than Xiaomei, Orangutan, convenient bee, etc.) placed in office scenes, smart containers (such as Binguo Box, Haha Retail, etc.), and service providers (such as Convenience 24) ).

The essence of unmanned retail is still retail. The scenario is just a means. The core is still efficiency and experience. In this fleeting unmanned retail battle, we noticed that “Mei Ke Convenience” survived and sank quickly.

Reported in 2018 Convenient beauty , Focus on Tier 2-4 cities, through the establishment of unmanned self-service vending machines in the community, the establishment of “commercial centers” in the community at the entrance of the core traffic of the community, around the community dwelling daily consumer goods, to provide residents with commodity services.

At present, in the central China region, Meike is an unmanned retail service provider with the highest community coverage rate, covering 20+ cities in Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other provinces, more than 800 communities, and more than 3,000 devices installed. The number of users reached reached 2 million, with a cumulative revenue of 50 million in 2019, and realized profitability.

If you go back and reopen unmanned retail, what are the things that Meike has done right? Founder Zhu Zhiyong said that digitalization, community scenarios, and the team’s strengths in the supply chain are the key points that Meike has insisted to this day.

The first is data.

In Zhu Zhiyong’s view, the transformation of the entire retail industry lies in the improvement of data and operational efficiency, helping to optimize decision-making in all aspects of retail. Compared with the first-tier cities, the retail formats of the second-, third-, and fourth-tier cities are mostly husband and wife shops and regional supermarkets and convenience stores. There is much room for improvement in data capabilities.

Mei Ke convenienceResearched the data system. The front-end consumer tags, such as social characteristics, consumption habits, and geographic location information. Among the tens of thousands of skus in the product library, products are also labeled; in addition to people and goods, the “field” is also the community. Your own label (according to the surrounding business form, population, age, community type, etc.), the matching degree of person, cargo, and yard will determine the sku of different containers , which can achieve more accurate paving Goods, that is, “thousands of cabinets and thousands of faces.”

Another aspect of efficiency is in replenishment. Meike’s system can automatically submit replenishment applications in the background through the sales situation, without the need for personnel to submit, and the personnel responsible for operation and maintenance only need to regularly place the goods on the shelves. In addition, is different from the traditional containers represented by Youbao. Meige has remodeled the containers and enlarged the space design behind the shelves for storage, which is equivalent to a small warehouse in front, which further reduces transportation. Dimensional cost.

From the effect of the data, the turnover cycle of containers is basically 3-5 days, which can be digested within a week. The turnover efficiency is twice that of convenience stores and 4 times that of supermarkets.

Resolved efficiency, then the scenario.

Zhu Zhiyong said that compared with scenarios where the population is more mobile such as airports and railway stations, users in the 2-4 community are more stable, and good operations can cultivate stickiness. You can use the marketing methods such as buying gifts to become a membership system. Increase retention and repurchase.

In practice, Meike Convenience does the same. After paying $ 99 a year to become a member, you can buy many products at discounted prices, especially products that just need high frequency, such as milk and water. This model is similar to the membership-based e-commerce business. Typical companies with similar models include Costco and beauty e-commerce dolphin home.

These are also directly reflected in the user’s purchase data. According to data provided by Meike, currently tens of thousands of paying members have purchased more than 10 times a month, and the unit price is about 10 yuan. And frequency and retention are much higher than non-paying members.

It solves the problem of people and markets. On the product side, Meike is convenient to take goods directly with many brands (special distribution channels). The price is lower than the dealers and KA channels.The founder Zhu Zhiyong is a serial entrepreneur. He used to be the head of the China Mobile Henan Campus Marketing Center. He then worked as a supplier in the supermarket supply chain and founded a number of large-scale supermarket chains and regional shopping malls. The head of the supply chain used to be Carrefour and Alibaba.com has 5 years of retail entrepreneurial experience.

Chain retail formats have become more popular in first-tier cities. Both foreign-funded convenience stores, domestic start-up convenience chains, and unmanned retail have done a good job of market education, but in 2-5 tier cities, 283 Prefecture-level cities, 1735 counties, and a population base of 1 billion are still in urgent need of improving infrastructure and industrial upgrading, and there are opportunities for chain and digitalization.

Meike Convenience will continue to expand the market in Central China this year, and continue to lay containers offline in the form of partners. According to the data provided by the company, the daily sales of containers that perform well can reach 2,000 yuan. The return of a single container The period is 3-6 months.

Meike Convenience has completed three rounds of financing of Panda Capital’s ten-million-level angel round, Black Horse Fund, and Blue Maple Capital.