Business question 6: How to promote unmanned shelves?

Question: At present, I am starting a business as an unmanned retail shelf in Guangzhou. The company operates about 1000 unmanned retail shelves in CBD of Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu. Customer development is to cooperate with a building property service company to tap customers through sweeping the building and pushing. The market competition is becoming more and more fierce. After half a year, the shelf development entered a bottleneck period, the number of new shelves was slow, and the customer unit price began to decline. After the problems were discovered, consumption was stimulated by recommending cash rewards and opening gift packages, and the development scope was also expanded to the surrounding office buildings and pioneer parks. The operation has also begun. Operation Breakfast. But the operation of breakfast is not ideal, and customers will not recommend more customers because of our cash reward. Embarrassed, the customers we serve are customers for C, and the negotiation object during development is the management or even the boss of the customer company, so even if it brings convenience to consumers, the business owners or managers may not necessarily want to introduce our shelves, and few customer companies recommend new companies to settle in. What pain points can the office unmanned retail shelves solve for the management of business owners or customers? How to use these pain points to develop customers in order to attract customers to recommend forwarding and form a network effect? Where is the differentiation of products and services compared with peers and even e-commerce channels?

My answer: Garra's question today is actually a competition question. I once helped the team in Wuhan to do the pre-promotion of this project, and I have the following insights:

1. Book a good location: This classmate said that he started this unmanned shelf project and was not sure whether to contract the operation or create his own brand. There are already dozens of companies competing in this field. Judging from the current data, big coffees like Hungry, Guo Xiaomei and Daily Fresh have entered the second half, and even the backyard caught fire because of settlement problems such as suppliers' freezers. Therefore, first of all, we must make clear whether we are at the executive level under the big tree or a new brand participating in the competition.

Step better. There is not enough food in this market. In the early stage, you will soon occupy the land, fight for resources and subsidies, and there will definitely be fewer and fewer high-quality outlets. Therefore, we should make a good strategy according to the market cycle. Pre-snack packages, recommended rewards, and subsidies for new users are all very hard, so you need to think about the road behind. How to make B-end customers choose you from many choices, or change the previous brand, you need to step on the right rhythm. Otherwise, if breakfast is not good, you need to change more ways.

3. Grasp the pain point: In fact, if you often run to the front line of unmanned shelves, you will find that the company is willing to introduce a lot because other companies have already laid it, and many companies have to work overtime or the surrounding facilities are inconvenient. As a manifestation of welfare, its pain point is actually innocuous from the perspective of B-end, more because others have put it down, or want to show that the company is very human. For the C-end project, it is more to seize the last mile of the white-collar market and solve the convenience line.

4. Do well: This student hopes to get more recommended users. According to your current volume of 1 0,000 outlets, it is really too small. The market size is relatively fixed. There are three directions. One direction is to design enough recommendation mechanisms. Everyone is using recommended reward red envelopes or snack bags. Can you compete with the financial boss? Therefore, it is suggested to design differentiated incentives, such as cross-industry cooperation and friendship, and targeted batch push by administrative or personnel supervisors. The second direction is to seize high-quality users. At present, we can see a large number of brands in several people's offices, which is a waste of resources, similar to enjoying bicycles. Therefore, it is recommended to deal with high-quality customers, such as IT R&D company. Overtime is normal and demand is strong. The third direction is to use unmanned shelf contacts to extend service products, intensively cultivate customers and obtain more other values from them.

For the tuyere, if you have the strength, you must quickly encircle the land and do a good job in service quality. If the strength is limited, it is necessary to differentiate, take unmanned shelves as the connection point, and do all the services needed by B-end. Shelves are just a business segment. I hope the above suggestions can help.

The teacher's answer:

Triple transaction structure of unmanned shelves;

To give advice to this classmate, we must first understand the format of nobody, what it is and what its characteristics are.

There are many forms of unmanned commerce, including unmanned supermarkets, vending machines in office buildings, high-speed railway station, airports and unmanned shelves. The so-called unmanned format is actually an optimization of the retail business structure and transaction structure, and entrepreneurs themselves should know best. The concept of "optimizing transaction structure" will be mentioned repeatedly in the third quarter.

So what is the essence of optimizing the transaction structure? It is to maximize everyone's interests by eliminating the relatively inefficient links in the business model.

For example, the rent of traditional convenience stores is the cost that can be saved by unmanned shelves, because there is no need to pay rent for unmanned shelves in offices. Moreover, it doesn't need tens of thousands of dollars to produce it like a complicated vending machine. Simple unmanned shelves have almost no technical content, and the cost may be only a few hundred pieces, so the manufacturing cost is also saved. In other words, unmanned shelves are more efficient than convenience stores and vending machines.

However, while improving efficiency, saving rent and manufacturing costs, it also produces new costs, that is, trust costs. What should I do if someone else took something and didn't give it, or the network was not good at that time, and I planned to give it later and then forgot? This unmanned shelf mode is destined to be a mode of greater commodity loss.

Therefore, whether this model itself can be established depends on whether the manufacturing cost it saves is higher than the trust cost it loses. If so, this model can be established. And this answer may be practical, and you won't know until you run the data.

Ok, after talking about the business model of unmanned shelves, let's talk about this specific problem.

In essence, this problem involves the change of transaction structure. The real beneficiaries of unmanned shelves are company employees. With this shelf, they can buy cheaper things more conveniently. However, it is up to the boss to decide whether the unmanned shelves can be placed in the office building. We also saw this contradiction in garra's problem.

The business model of unmanned shelves is called B2B2C. The first b refers to the company that sells unmanned shelves; The second b refers to companies, business owners and company leaders who may buy unmanned shelves; And the C here refers to the final consumer, that is, the employees of the company with no shelves. As an entrepreneur, you have to solve the optimization problems of these three transaction structures at the same time, and this business model can be promoted successfully. Next, let's talk about how to optimize these three transaction structures one by one.

1. The first B is the unmanned shelf company itself.

As we said just now, he wants to find out through the actual operating data whether the manufacturing cost and rent saved by this model can cover the increased trust cost.

For example. As we know, take-away food delivery staff usually ride electric cars. Although the electric car is heavy and not easy to be stolen, its battery is particularly easy to be stolen. However, you can't let the courier bring the battery every time you send a takeaway upstairs, which will waste a lot of time. So what should we do? There is a takeaway company that does this: when the takeaway arrives in a community, the company system will send him a message to remind him whether the security situation in the community is good or not and whether it is necessary to bring the battery upstairs. This way, the delivery staff can handle it according to the actual situation. How does the takeaway company know if this community is safe? It is the data information that is counted through the actual situation in past experience. In this way, some places have batteries, and some places don't, so the delivery efficiency of the takeaway staff has reached an optimal balance. Therefore, the operational efficiency brought by data can control the trust cost.

Whether the first transaction structure is established depends on the final data after specific operations.

2. the second b, the optimization of the main transaction structure of the enterprise.

Here, I think garra actually made a small mistake, that is, he mistook the employees of the enterprise for customers and regarded the business owner as the license issuer, which is actually wrong.

In the B2B2C model, his first important customer is still the enterprise, which is B in the middle. He is not only the license issuer, but also the customer himself. So, what you should actually think is: What needs can your products meet for business owners and bosses? Why does he need your unmanned shelf?

In my opinion, bosses may need unmanned shelves to solve two problems: First, how to show special concern for employees. The word "appear" is quoted here, because I believe that most bosses really care about their employees, but their sincerity needs to be shown in some ways; The second question is: how to improve the work efficiency of employees. For example, it would be great if employees could go shopping in convenience stores during working hours.

If you can solve these two problems, business owners will have a reason to need you. So how should it be realized? Let me give you two ideas first.

Provide some food on the shelf that can be eaten for lunch and is not easy to go bad. You can have lunch because if employees can scan the code in the office to solve lunch, they can continue to work, which is a good way for the boss to improve the efficiency of employees. At the same time, food is not easy to deteriorate, because it can reduce the operating cost of unmanned shelves and does not need frequent replacement and replenishment. In addition, in addition to mineral water and coke, putting some foods such as red bull and coffee on the shelves that can improve work efficiency will definitely be welcomed by business owners.

It is to show the boss's concern for employees through some details. How to do it specifically?

Give a small example. Suppose the price of a bag of potato chips in a general retail store is 3 yuan, and the price on your unmanned shelf is 2 yuan. Why can it be sold cheaper? Don't think it's all because of you. Essentially, because the boss gave you a position, you saved the rent of a convenience store and didn't need powerful equipment like a vending machine, so you saved the manufacturing cost. These are all opportunities given to you by business owners. Then the boss's behavior can be reflected in the product.

For example, the original price of this product is 3 yuan, and now it is 2 yuan. You can put a note on the product saying: boss subsidy 1 yuan. If you label every product "the boss subsidizes a few dollars", the boss's concern for employees will be reflected, and you can use this logic and the method mentioned just now to improve employee efficiency to talk to the boss. I'm sure the boss will welcome you more at this time.

3. The third transaction structure, which is the last C end.

How to optimize this part? As an entrepreneur, standing on the side of employees will definitely think of a truth: I especially want to drink coke, but it is very troublesome to go downstairs to buy it. At this time, if there is coke on the company's unmanned shelves and it is cheaper than the convenience store downstairs, then I will definitely buy it. This demand is obvious, so compared with the first two transaction structures, this transaction structure is more easily thought of by entrepreneurs. So, your competitors may be convenience stores and elevators downstairs, or even vending machines on the first floor. At this time, you may need to constantly strengthen the end consumer, how cheap and time-saving your unmanned shelves are, so that it is possible to change.

Well, let me sum it up. The business model of unmanned shelves is called B2B2C unmanned commerce, and there are three trading structures. What entrepreneurs need to do is to optimize these three transaction structures respectively.

The first transaction structure-unmanned shelves, B-end, should pay attention to the relationship between balancing costs. On the one hand, it is the saved manufacturing cost and rental cost, on the other hand, it is the increased trust cost. This model can only be established if the current is greater than the latter. As for how to improve the probability of success, it is still necessary to find a solution through the data in the actual operation process.

The second transaction structure-the B-end of the business owner, facing him, you should know that you have to solve the boss's two needs: first, "appear" that he cares about employees; The second is to improve the work efficiency of employees.

The third transaction structure-the final consumer, here you have to remember: if this business model can be established, the ultimate motivation must come from someone buying goods. Making consumers profitable is the starting point of everything. This is the easiest transaction structure to think of, but the first two transaction structures must not be ignored.