The “ambition” of S.Mall Si Mao unmanned convenience store: realizing the traceability of the entire RFID chain
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In the past two decades, e-commerce has been eating the cake of physical retail. After nearly two decades of crazy growth, the growth rate has slowed down greatly. The user growth rate is gradually decreasing, and the dividends of the mobile shopping population are basically exhausted. Under this background, offline retail seems to have found new opportunities for rebound. From traditional physical retail, e-commerce, and then to the concept of “new retail”, the chemical reaction generated by retail integration technology has developed rapidly, as evidenced by the popularity of unmanned stores.
When it comes to unmanned stores, one has to mention the technology hidden behind unmanned stores-RFID. Ali “Tao Coffee”, which has gained the limelight recently, uses face recognition + RFID technology. Most unmanned stores in Japan and domestic startups that do unmanned stores also use RFID technology. S.Mall, a rookie of unmanned stores, is also one of them. One family.
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RFID, or radio frequency identification technology, refers to a radio-based information identification technology, also known as electronic tags. The working principle is mainly to automatically identify the target object and obtain the corresponding data through the radio frequency signal, and the whole process of work and operation is automated. Without manual intervention, it is a non-contact automatic identification technology.
In the past, RFID technology has been used in libraries, access control systems, and food safety traceability. S.Mall founder Wang Yongchun established Lishi Technology in his early years to provide tens of millions of RFID electronic tags to the animal husbandry industries in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries to assist these countries in achieving food safety traceability. Unmanned convenience stores rely on the features of RFID technology that can scan quickly, have strong penetrability, and read without barriers, so that the electronic tags affixed to the goods can be flexibly and automatically identified, thereby realizing unmanned cashier and efficient inventory.
When talking about the comparison between RFID technology and the current popular visual recognition technology, Wang Yongchun said frankly that RFID technology is used at this stage because it is more mature, more stable, and quickest to use. If the future visual recognition technology becomes more mature, it may be The combined mode of RFID plus visual recognition, but RFID will definitely play its value for a long time.
Multi-mode application
Unmanned stores do not completely replace manual labor. After customers self-check out after receiving the goods, manual operations are still required for marketing, replenishment, shelf tidying, and cleaning. Objectively speaking, unmanned convenience stores only partially reduce labor costs. Unmanned is not the only purpose. It is its core value to bring more intelligent operation and management models to businesses. According to Wang Yongchun, the founder of S.Mall, each item in the S.Mall unmanned store based on RFID technology has an RFID identification tag, which will form a corresponding electronic bill. At present, there are mainly the following three modes, which are divided into types:
1. ID-free mode: Corresponding to the A mode of Simao, that is, consumers enter the unmanned store through a physical switch, and the access control is automatically closed after entering, and the consumer can open the merchandise cabinet in the store, freely select goods, and complete the shopping payment. .
2. Pre-identification mode: Corresponding to the B mode and C mode of Simao. Users need to use Alipay or WeChat to scan the QR code to enter the unmanned store or open the container, that is, pre-identification, and then enter the store or open the merchandise cabinet for product selection, and then leave the store after selecting the product. On-the-spot payment will be automatically deducted by Alipay (if secret payment is enabled), and mobile payment can also be made by operating the mobile phone at the convenience of the user.
3. Fully open mode: Corresponding to the D mode of Simao. In this mode, users can freely enter and exit the store to purchase products. The products have smart tags. The user uses the mobile phone to scan the code to pay. If the payment is not completed, the access control system will automatically detect and alarm.
Among the four operating modes of Simao, the A and B modes are small rooms of 4 square meters; the C mode is a smart commodity cabinet without external protective devices; the D mode is suitable for a full open space of 10-500 square meters, which can solve the peak period For queuing problems, the combined mode of manned and unmanned is adopted, which not only does not sacrifice the performance and service of manned mode, but also saves labor costs and improves the efficiency of inventory counting. According to Wang Yongchun, at the end of August, Simao will cooperate with an imported goods chain brand to open a 300-square-meter D-mode supermarket in a CBD shopping mall in Beijing. This mode will be equipped with a small number of service personnel, combined with unmanned self-service applications, and bring better Consumer experience. Wang Yongchun revealed that the four modes can be used flexibly in combination with scenarios, and the E mode may come out in the future.
not afraid
As another new business format that has attracted much attention after bicycle sharing, industry giants have entered the game, startups have poured in, capital tycoons are gearing up, and there seems to be a lot of players on the track of unmanned convenience stores. Facing the challenge, Wang Yongchun said: Although the application of RFID technology in unmanned stores will not become the core barrier of the industry, the current retail market in China is large enough to not only allow giants but also start-up companies to survive together. And he believes that the value that RFID can bring is far more than the realization of unattended.
During the more than ten years of continuous practice in the RFID field, Wang Yongchun found that although the foreign food traceability field has been protected by legislation, it only achieved the RFID electronic traceability in the breeding stage, and the traceability was broken in the slaughter and logistics distribution. On the other hand, in China, small farmers are scattered and large companies are unwilling to advance. It is even more difficult to achieve food traceability.
“This is why we want to think about the cat unmanned convenience store. Our purpose is to cultivate the habit of consumers through the use of retail terminals, and then force the entire industry chain to realize the whole chain traceability. We call it The reverse path, and we also think this may be one of the paths to realize C2M or C2B in the future.” Wang Yongchun said.
RFID can be traced back to every product, and its potential value is huge. This is why Wang Yongchun has been in the RFID industry for many years. In his opinion, there are no identical commodities in the world, and every commodity has its own unique genes. Using this feature, if the digital ID of the product and the digital ID of the person (such as WeChat/Alipay membership number) can be bound by some method, greater value will be generated. This application can also solve the food safety traceability problem that the government has always been troubled by.
There are currently divergent opinions in the industry as to how unmanned convenience stores will affect the retail industry. In addition to the routinely discussed operating costs and profit issues, Wang Yongchun’s “ambitions” seem to be even greater, which can be seen from his positioning of the S.Mall Si Mao unmanned store as “the iPhone for offline retail”. In his opinion, S.Mall Si Mao unmanned store should be the infrastructure of offline retail, relying on it to realize intelligent management and achieve the purpose of online and offline integration. In the future, it is the greatest value to make the entire industry chain traceable throughout the entire chain, and then achieve C2M or C2B. As for unattended and offline retail “digitalization”, it is only an added value.
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