E-commerce consumption
Technology Drives Retail Revolution? In fact, the essence of new retail or "people"
Author: Yunyang child. The earliest study of new retail promoters, 500 new retail consultants, former vice president of Wanling Group's e-commerce.
In August 2017, experts from the Ministry of Commerce went to Axixixi Park for research and asked a question: What is new retail? At that time, Ali provided a statement: New retail is based on data-driven reconstruction of the three elements of business people, goods, and fields.
The author believes that this argument does not tell us what new retail is, but what new retail should do. This can be interpreted from the perspective of the retail industry and retail companies.
- From a business perspective
From a business perspective, the core of the new retail implementation has two levels: the technical level and the retail level.
Technical level: The core is the digitization of “people and freight yards”. The purpose is to achieve data-driven or digital operations.
At the retail level: The core is the reconstruction of the “people and freight yard” with the aim of achieving a major transformation of the retail enterprise.
- From the perspective of industry
You can interpret the "data-driven reconstruction of the three elements of business, goods, and fields."
The data drives the representation of "technology-driven"; the three elements of commerce are people, goods, and field: on behalf of "retail"; the reconstruction represents "change" or "revolution." Integrated together is "technology-driven retail revolution (revolution)."
From an industry perspective, the purpose of the new retail is to promote major changes in the retail industry through technology. Without a revolution in technology, it is impossible for the retail industry to make major changes.
Big changes in the retail industry
I. Mobile Internet
Because of the prevalence of 4G bandwidth and smartphones, and the rapid development of mobile Internet, mobile Internet is also a combination of mobile communication and the Internet. Its biggest feature is that: Smartphones have become the Internet's first entry point, surpassing PCs.
In the area of e-commerce, we have seen mobile-end e-commerce companies gradually eliminate PC-based e-commerce providers. For example, Alibaba.com’s share of mobile terminals from 19% in 2014 to 79% in 2017 has basically eliminated the PC in just 4 years. Explain one point: Mobile technology has caused great changes in e-commerce, and the time is short.
Another point, many people did not see, but what is happening: China's vigorous development of new retail, is gradually eliminating pure electricity supplier and physical retail.
The integration of online (electricity business) and offline (entity) cannot take place in the Internet era. Only in the era of mobile Internet can it be possible to integrate "1+1>2" to create a more efficient new retail.
The only case that can be seen at the moment is the box horse.
In 2016, Tmall Supermarkets positioned itself as the fourth consumer platform after Taobao, Tmall, and Costco. With the success of the box-marine model in 2017, the strategic location of Tmall Supermarket (pure e-commerce) was clearly replaced by Boxma (new retail). Later, some of the practices also made it clear that the positioning of Boxma as a Super App may be the same as Tmall and Taobao in the future.
In the first half of the mobile Internet, we saw that mobile-end e-commerce companies have eliminated PC-side e-commerce providers.
In the second half of the mobile Internet, we are about to see the new retailer take away the old retail (purchasing pure e-commerce and pure physical retail).
The "killing" mentioned here is an adjective.
Second, the Internet of Things
With the establishment of the 5G standard and the large-scale application of information sensing equipment (electronic price tag, etc.), the Internet of Things era will soon come and physical retailing will be able to operate digitally on full-links.
One yard
One item in traditional retail is a bar code (one-dimensional code); the new retail upgrade is a two-dimensional code. An important cognition: "code" is the traffic entrance of the physical scene. New retail practitioners expect users to have a huge change in behavior: to shop, scan the code first.
In department stores, scan code to see costumes, product details, etc.; in the supermarket scene, scan code to see the source of goods, product details and so on.
Online scene + entity scene complement each other, increase user experience, the purpose is to promote sales.
- Electronic price tag
The use of electronic price tags in hypermarkets solves online and offline synchronization issues, price synchronization, and inventory synchronization. The efficiency of operations has increased and electronic price tag has become one of the standards for new supermarkets. According to industry sources, Ali's own research and development of electronic price tag will be launched immediately, perhaps to Pratt & Whitney retail.
- Electronic tags
RFID electronic tags are the basis of the Internet of Things, but due to the applicability and price of RF technology, only some use scenarios are suitable. Whether or not RFID will have breakthrough technologies in the future will determine the future development of commercial IoT.
Currently, the application of QR codes and electronic price tags in the retail industry will be very popular. One possibility of merging online and offline scenes is possible. One is to make it possible to synchronize prices online and offline.
Third, artificial intelligence
The combination of online and offline leads to “more than three” phenomenon: data sources, data formats, and data capacity. Especially for various scenarios, unstructured data such as pictures, sounds, videos, etc. will greatly increase data capacity. The application of massive (big) data presents two distinctive features in the mobile Internet era: accuracy and feedback real-time.
At this time, artificial intelligence is needed to process big data, and data value enables the retail industry.
- Smart shopping guide
The retail industry has a big pain point: shopping guides.
There are shopping guides in the department store industry, and promoters in hypermarkets will face varying levels of sales. Smart shopping guides are interactive and can be dialogues, such as: Buying robots in the App + artificial shopping guides. Robot shopping guide service is higher than most people (because of big data), and then using manual shopping guide to supplement can achieve excellent standards.
The pattern of this subdivided field can basically be seen in the final situation: the food of several large platform companies, and the companies doing tool-based software basically have to stop cooking and have the opportunity to quickly sell it.
- Intelligent delivery
At present, new hypermarkets and supermarkets, 30 to 60 minutes home is the standard, instant consumption areas (such as: convenience stores), 30 minutes home is the standard. In the new retail era, the express delivery industry has also undergone tremendous changes. Short-distance distribution is the trend of the future.
Short-distance distribution, according to the traditional way, the distribution costs will make many companies can not afford it. It places very high demands on distribution standards and must be optimized through algorithms and artificial intelligence to improve distribution efficiency. Based on algorithms and deep learning, complete intelligent distribution and delivery. Distribution efficiency is to send a few orders.
For more new retail companies, short-distance delivery will use the standard combination of third-party distribution and self-distribution. The optimal efficiency of each delivery will be unreliable to human brains. Only artificial intelligence will give the best and fastest decision.
Smart buyer
Only when they have done a retail business, do they know how important the buyer is, but they also know how difficult it is to cultivate and need to understand commodities, selling points, visual displays, and sales bands. The author once worked as a buyer, knowing that this is a complex type of work. It requires not only quantitative analysis but also a lot of qualitative analysis and even intuition.
The significance of creating smart buyers through algorithms and artificial intelligence is that machines replace ordinary buyers to solve talent problems; big data support predictability, increase sales capacity, and reduce inventory risks.
Artificial intelligence must have big data; with big data, artificial intelligence must be used. This is a pair of twin brothers who will be born on a large platform and become the infrastructure of the industry, empowering every retail enterprise. The author believes that this will result in overall social efficiency. The vast majority of retail companies do not have the ability to collect large data, and they do not have the ability to develop artificial intelligence.
Fourth, the application of unmanned retail technology
How to judge to become a new retail enterprise, the application of unmanned retail technology is one of the important standards, the purpose is to improve human efficiency. The application of unmanned retail technology is essentially a kind of evolutionary upgrade of retail thinking. Nobody + someone's integration represents efficiency.
No cash register
There are two types of ways for no-person cashiers: one is a self-service cash register, and the other is a mobile phone scan code payment. It is a pain point for consumers to reduce the queue time. For retailers, it is a substantial reduction of cashiers. This is also a pain point. For new retail service providers, it is a digital basis and no one has to cash in.
Therefore, no-person cash register is the easiest to promote at present, and several parties work together to promote it, especially in 2017.
In the next few years, no matter whether it is supermarkets, department stores, or convenience stores, there is a general tendency for no one to collect cash, and cashiers will be significantly reduced to other retail trades.
- Unmanned shopping guide
Unmanned shopping, is the use of smart machines instead of people, generally using two types of shopping guide terminal: First, the robot shopping guide, such as: shopping mall guide shopping robot special purchase, very cool; the second is the mobile phone smart shopping guide.
For the retail industry, shopping guide is very important, especially in the field of department stores, the optimal solution should be unmanned shopping guide + someone to guide the purchase of the overall solution, technical support by big data + artificial intelligence. Up to now, there are not many applications for unmanned shopping guides. Because there is a lack of platform support, only Tmall has put forward the practice of digital transformation and silent practice.
In the next few years, the requirements of the Purchasing Guide will gradually change, and the core objective is to convert from selling goods to operating users.
- 24-hour unmanned sales terminal
The 24-hour unmanned sales terminal is purely unretailed. There are roughly three types of applications: one is a smart unmanned shelf, suitable for office use, and covers an area of a few square feet. The second is a smart vending machine that is suitable for many scenarios. It occupies a few square meters to several tens of square meters; the third is a no-person convenience box, which is most suitable for a community scene and covers an area of at least a dozen square feet.
24-hour unmanned sales terminal, the essence of retail operations is convenient. There are two types of conveniences in the core: one is the convenience of distance, closer to the user; the second is the convenience of time, open 24 hours.
In the next few years, the convenience of 24-hour unmanned terminals will be reconstructed.
The ultimate goal of all kinds of technology applications is user experience and efficiency. The company's new retail implementation, online + offline, can improve the effectiveness of the floor; someone + no one can improve human efficiency. However, from the perspective of practitioners, the majority of entity retail and e-commerce embrace each other, is 1+1<2; retail practitioners should be very clear: technology users are people, retailers (especially retail executives and The boss's cognition is not updated and it simply cannot be evolved into new retail.
Technology promotes a major change in retail sales. Its nature is very simple, and (technical) tools change (retail people) awareness.