Is there a future automatic vending machine, is there a future?

Produced ｜ NBS New Products n Author ｜ Wu Wenwu

A few days ago, a new NBS product saw a automatic vending machine at the corner of a underground garage in Shenzhen. I thought I could buy a bottle of drink to quench my thirst. broken.

Automatic vending machines are very popular a few years ago. It can be seen everywhere. Now it seems that the number is getting less and less.

Is it really not possible to automatically sell machines? Is there a future vending machine that was very popular in the past?

01 Automatic vending machines from popularity to neglect

The automatic vending machine was first born in the 1st century AD. A Greek named Hero created the earliest automatic vending machine in the world and sold "holy water" to people from the motion.

Until 1925, the United States developed the vending machine for selling cigarettes. Since then, various automatic vending machines such as stamps, tickets, candy, beverages, newspapers, etc. appeared. In 1994, the automatic vending machine entered the Chinese market.

Automatic vending machines keep up with the development of the times. In the 1.0 era, you can only accept coins or small banknotes, sell low -temperature bottle -loaded beverages and canned beverages. In the 2.0 era, you can sell coins at one time. And set up independent double -room hot and cold arbitrary conversion.

In the Chinese market entered a crazy development stage in the Chinese market, it was in the 3.0 era. With the development of the Internet and mobile Internet technology, the popularization of electronic mobile payments, automatic sales machines "can sell everything."

Around 2012, the Chinese Internet industry set off a wave of entrepreneurship. In the context of "Internet+", various types of entrepreneurial projects have emerged endlessly, and there are O2O well known.

Automatic vending machines have become a hot track. In the streets of the city, many automatic vending machine entrepreneurial projects have appeared. There are many categories. In addition to selling common products such as drinks and snacks, many new categories of automatic sales have appeared. For example, flower automatic vending machine, freshly squeezed juice automatic sales machine.

For example, the "Internet+Flower" brand FlowerPlu Flower has completed 5 rounds of financing in the three years since its establishment in 2015. Another example was established in 2014. The orange of the angels that mainly sells freshly squeezed orange juice has been arranged in more than 8,000 terminal equipment in 220 cities across the country in just 4 years. It reached 90%. Angel Orange completed a total of 6 rounds of financing. Among them, in October 2017, a Series B financing was completed, which gathered well -known investment institutions such as IDG and Junlian Capital.

Under the wave of Internet entrepreneurship, the explosive growth of automatic sales machine sales was driven.

According to statistics from the Foresight Industry Research Institute, the size of China's automatic sales machine market in 2013 was only 1.9 billion yuan. By 2016, the industry market size increased to 7.5 billion yuan, an increase of 74.42%year -on -year, and the market size in 2018 reached 19 billion yuan.

Immediately afterwards, the concept of new retail appeared, which made the automatic vending machine hot again. A group of star entrepreneurs such as daily fresh convenience purchase, fruit Xiaomei, orangutan convenience, and Binguo Box appeared.

However, these automatic sales machine entrepreneurial projects were just on fire for a while, and soon staged a tide of the industry.

Fruit Xiaomei, who had financed hundreds of millions of yuan, staged "100 days of life and death" in May 2018. In 2019, Binguo Box layoffs, the arrears became the defendant. By the end of 2019, 96%of the company's entrepreneurial projects with automatic vending machines were closed.

In this way, in just a few years, the wave of vending machines for business entrepreneurship, from fire to explosion, to the market out of the market, and soon disappeared.

02 Why are so many automatic vending machines cold?

The automatic sales machine entrepreneurial project has staged a "plot" from the hot tide of the industry to gradually cooling. Why?

From the perspective of the new NBS products, reviewing the entrepreneurial story of this automatic vending machine can be used as "why is it fire?" And "Why is it cold?"

First, why is it fire? The automatic vending machine is neither a new species nor a new consumer scenario. With the blessing of the concepts of Internet waves, mobile digital payment and new retail, the energy can be used aspects: people, goods, and fields.

In terms of people, it is people's flow. These Internet startup companies lock in cities, streets, shopping malls, stations, and even entering office buildings, communities, shopping centers, etc., aiming at consumers.

In terms of goods, people's consumption scenarios are diversified. From beverages and snacks to developing flowers, fresh (present) juice, etc., consumers do have temporary shopping needs, and the continuous enrichment of commodity categories has driven new consumer demand.

In terms of field, that is, consumer scenes, consumer temporary consumption or emergency consumption needs have spawned the needs of consumer scenarios, and even gave birth to new demand. Box automatic sale machine.

The existence of consumer demand, the improvement of technical scenarios, and the improvement of the supply chain, and the booster of the capital to make the automatic vending machine and unmanned retail format a few times.

However, why do these automatic sales machine entrepreneurial projects rotate, ebb and collapse?

From the perspective of the new NBS products, there are many reasons for being abandoned by consumers, replacement of consumer scenarios, alternatives and enrichment of consumer scenarios, chain reactions caused by the operating problem of automatic vending machines. First, the automatic vending machine is indifferent and abandoned by consumers.

Automatic vending machine is a convenient consumption and acute consumption. The attributes of consumption are more interested in consumption. There are consumer demand, such as buying a cup of cold drinks, buying a can of cola, buying a bag of paper towels, and even buying a bunch of flowers.

These consumer categories are not just needed, the consumption frequency is very low, and the consumption scenario is not sustainable. When the consumer is sold automatically, or pays it, it is not good. Consumer experience, consumers will only be left out and even abandon their use.

Second, the replacement and enrichment of consumer scenarios.

The diversification of consumer scenarios will change consumers' purchase habits. There are many competitors for automatic vending machines. For example, convenience stores spreading throughout the streets, consumers will choose convenience stores and will not choose automatic vending machines. For another example, the new Chinese tea drinks and coffee shops can be seen everywhere, which will also cause consumers to ignore the existence of automatic vending machines.

It can be said that the diversification of consumer scenarios, the convenience of consumers' purchase and the richness of optional can be affected, which affects the "survival" of automatic vending machines.

Third, the problem of automatic sales machine companies' own operating problems aroused market chain reactions.

The crazy development of these automatic vending machine companies has also laid down operating risks and various problems, such as equipment maintenance, replenishment, and after -sales service. In particular, issues involving food safety will also cause a fatal blow to some projects.

For example, the Angel Orange has been exposed to the problem of food and safety many times, and the orange juice contains residual juice, the internal component splash juice has black hair and green, and uses moldy oranges. It is being abandoned by consumers and markets.

Of course, these automatic sales machine entrepreneurial projects also eventually caused collapse due to the company's own business burning money and crazy expansion. The deeper reasons behind it also had some terminal franchisees that did not achieve profitability and lost market motivation. In the end, these automatic vending machines were finally automatically. It became an idle device, or even waste, and no one asked.

03 automatic vending machine, is there a future?

Regarding the existence of automatic vending machines, there are many different sounds in the market. Some people think that automatic vending machines are chicken ribs, and some people think that automatic vending machines are fragrant.

So, is the automatic vending machine and the future? The answer is of course: yes!

From the perspective of industry data, the number of automatic vending machines is still increasing. From 2017 to 2021, the number of Chinese automatic vending machines increased from 350,800 units to 924,500 units, with an average annual compound growth rate of 30.3%.

According to Shalvin data, as of the end of 2021, the number of Chinese beverage vending machines and comprehensive vending machines reached 374,000 and 30,800, of which, the number of automatic vending machines in China's new first -tier cities reached 298,600, such as for example, for example In 2021, the automatic vending machine is accelerating entering the factory and office space, becoming a new highlight of the market growth.

NBS new products slightly believe that the consumer demand and consumption scenario of self -active vending machines in the future still exist, and even the new consumer demand and consumer scenarios are constantly derived.

First, the automatic vending machine is still optimistic about by major retail brands.

Although the Internet entrepreneurial projects of some automatic vending machines on the market have disappeared, the automatic vending machine has become a must -have equipment for the major retail consumer brands, such as the net red ice cream brand Zhong Xuegao began to deploy an automatic manner at the end of 2020. The vending machine, Nongfu Spring and Internet Red Beverage Vitality Forest is also actively deploying automatic vending machines. Coca -Cola also arranged automatic vending machines in shopping malls and office buildings.

Automatic sales machines have become consumer scenarios directly contacting customers under these brands. Although they are only one of them as one of them, these brands still try to increase their efforts to lay out offline automatic sales machine networks.

Second, new consumer demand and consumer scenarios still need to be automatically sold.

New categories, new consumption drives new consumption scenarios, such as the popularity of blind boxes, Bubble Mate also actively arranged automatic vending machines. It is not only placed at the entrance of retail stores, but also separated from the flow of people in major shopping malls.

For another example, the prefabricated dishes that are very popular now have also led to the development of automatic vending machines. At present, many brands in the market have launched unmanned prefabricated automatic vending machines, which have become new highlights in the market. These consumption scenarios can be richer, and even in the future even You can walk into the community.

Third, automatic sales machine companies are still adhering to the development, and in the future, they can also expand new markets.

Automatic vending machine companies and unmanned retailers are still adhering to the development. For example, the automatic vending machine manufacturing and unmanned retail dealer Youbao will submit a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in early June this year with 100,000 automatic vending machine networks. The second largest shareholder behind it is Shanghai Yunxin, a subsidiary of Ant Group, holds 16.68%.

In the era of unmanned retail consumption, the manufacturer of automatic vending machine equipment has always been a winner, and even in the future, it can move towards the international market. Recently, according to Japanese media reports, recently, the number of free -selling machines for free -frozen food vending machines has increased, and future self -active vending machine companies can also accelerate the international market.

The prospects of automatic vending machines are still optimistic about market participants. According to the latest "China Unmanned Retail Industry Simple Edition Analysis Report" released by the China Economic Research Institute, the size of China's retail users has expanded by 2 times, and the size of unmanned retail users in 2021 reached reached the reached reached200 million people.In addition, according to the China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the total sales of China's unmanned retail market will reach 34.821 billion yuan by 2022, and the market size will continue to grow in the future.

Therefore, although many automatic vending machine entrepreneurial projects failed in the past, the automatic vending machine still exists, and new scene demand has appeared. The market prospects are still broad, but industry players must keep pace with the times and need to tell new stories.

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