Business Question 6: How to promote unmanned shelves?

Question: Currently, Guangzhou Entrepreneurship is building unmanned retail shelves in offices. The company operates about a thousand unmanned retail shelves in the CBDs of Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu. Customer development is done through building sweeps + land promotion, and we cooperate with a building property service company to develop customers. The market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Half a year later, the development of shelves has entered a bottleneck period. New shelves have been added slowly and the unit price per customer has begun to fall. After discovering the problem, we stimulated consumption through recommendation cash rewards and activation gift packages, and the scope of development also expanded to surrounding office buildings and entrepreneurial parks. In terms of operations, breakfast operations have also started. But the breakfast operation was not ideal, and customers did not recommend more customers because of our cash rewards. The embarrassing point is that the customers we serve are to C customers. When developing, the negotiating partners are the management or even the boss of the customer company. Therefore, even if it brings convenience to consumers, business owners or managers may not necessarily want to introduce it. There are also few customer companies recommending new companies to our shelves. I would like to ask what pain points can unmanned office retail shelves solve for customer business owners or management? How to use these pain points to develop customers, attract customers to recommend and forward, and form a network effect? ??Where is the area for differentiated comparison of products and services with peers and even e-commerce channels?

My answer: Garra’s question today is actually a matter of competition. I once assisted the team of Ele.me in Wuhan to promote the project in the early stage. I have the following insights:

1. Determine the position: This classmate said that he is starting a business to do this unmanned shelf project. He is not sure whether it is a contract operation or a self-made brand. There are already dozens of companies competing in this field, including Ele.me, Xingbianli, and Guo Big names like Xiaomei and Daily Youxian have entered the second half according to current data. Similar to Xingbianli, there was even a fire in the backyard due to settlement issues such as supplier freezers. Therefore, you first need to clarify whether you are doing the execution under the big tree or participating in the competition. new brand, and in turn push forward your circle of competence and resources and your differentiation.

2. Step carefully. There are too many people in this market. If you quickly occupy the land in the early stage, you will have to fight for resources and subsidies. There will definitely be fewer and fewer high-quality outlets. Therefore, you need to formulate a good strategy according to the market cycle. Snack gift packs, recommendation rewards and new user subsidies in the early stage will all be lost later. It’s time to work hard. You need to think about the road ahead, how to let B-end customers choose you among the many choices, or replace the previous brands. You need to set a good pace. If breakfast is not good, you need to change to more lines, otherwise it will only Falling further and further behind.

3. Grasp the pain points: In fact, if you often run the front line of unmanned shelves, you will find that companies are willing to introduce many because other companies have them. In addition, many companies work overtime or have inconvenient surrounding facilities. In terms of welfare, from the perspective of the B-side, its pain points are actually not painful. It is more because others have let it go, or they want to show that the company is very humane. For the C-side, this project is more about seizing the last mile of the white-collar market and solving it conveniently.

4. Do a good job: This student hopes to get more recommended users. According to your current size of 1,000 outlets, it is indeed too small. The market size is relatively fixed, and there are three directions. One direction is to design a sufficient recommendation mechanism. Everyone is using referral rewards to reward red envelopes or snack gift packs. Can your subsidies be stronger than those of sponsors? Therefore, it is recommended to design differentiated incentives, such as cross-industry cooperation and networking, and targeted batch push for administrative or personnel managers. The second direction requires seizing high-quality users. At present, we can see that a large number of offices with several people have several brands, which is a waste of resources, just like sharing bicycles. Therefore, it is recommended to get high-quality customers, such as IT R&D companies, and work overtime. Normal, demand is strong. The third direction is to use unmanned shelf touch points to extend service products, cultivate customers intensively, and obtain more other value from them.

For the outlet, if you have the strength, then quickly enclose the territory and improve service quality. If the strength is limited, do a good job in differentiation, use unmanned shelves as the connection point, and provide services that are needed by the B-side. Shelves are just a business segment. Hope the above suggestions are helpful.

Teacher’s answer:

The triple transaction structure of unmanned shelves:

To make suggestions to this student, we must first understand the unmanned shelf Business format, what is it, and what are its characteristics.

There are many types of unmanned commerce, including unmanned supermarkets, vending machines in office buildings, high-speed rail stations, airports, and unmanned shelves, etc. The so-called unmanned business format is actually an optimization of the retail business structure and transaction structure. This is what entrepreneurs should be most aware of. The concept of "optimizing transaction structure" will be mentioned repeatedly in the content of the third quarter.

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

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

However, while achieving efficiency improvements, saving rent and manufacturing costs, it also creates a new cost, that is, the cost of trust. What should I do if someone takes something and refuses to give me money, or the network is not good at the time and I plan to give it back later, but then forget about it? The model of unmanned shelves is destined to be a model with greater product loss.

Therefore, whether this model can be established depends on whether the manufacturing cost it saves is higher than the trust cost it consumes. If so, this model will only be established. And this answer may only be known after actual operation and running data.

Ok, now that we’ve talked about the business model of unmanned shelves, let’s talk about this specific issue.

Essentially, this issue involves changes in transaction structure. The real beneficiaries of unmanned shelves are the company's employees. With this shelf, they can buy cheaper things more conveniently. However, it is the boss who decides whether unmanned shelves can be placed in the office building. We also saw the existence of this contradiction in classmate Garra’s question.

We call this business model of unmanned shelves B2B2C. The first B refers to the company that sells unmanned shelves; the second B refers to the company, business owner, and company director who may buy unmanned shelves; and the C here refers to the final consumer. That is, employees of companies with unmanned shelves. As an entrepreneur, you must solve the problem of optimizing these three transaction structures at the same time, so that 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 just said, he needs to find out through actual operating data. This model saves Whether the manufacturing cost and rent can cover the increased trust cost.

Give an example. We know that food delivery people generally ride electric bicycles. Although electric bicycles are heavy and difficult to be stolen, their batteries are particularly easy to be stolen. However, you can't ask the courier to carry a battery with him every time he delivers food upstairs, as this will waste a lot of time. What to do? One takeaway company does this: when the takeaway driver arrives at a community, the company system will send him a message to remind him whether the safety of the community is good or not and whether he needs to carry the battery upstairs. In this way, the delivery person can handle it according to the actual situation. So how do takeaway companies know whether this community is safe? It is statistical information based on actual situations in past experience. In this way, some places carry batteries and some places do not, and the food delivery efficiency of the delivery staff reaches an optimal balance. Therefore, the operational efficiency brought by data can control the cost of trust.

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

2. The second B is the optimization of the transaction structure of the business owner

Here I think Garra actually made a small mistake, that is, he mistook the employees of the company as employees. It is actually wrong for customers to think of the business owner as just a license issuer.

In the B2B2C model, his first important customer is still the enterprise, that is, the B in the middle. He is not just the license issuer, but the customer himself.

Therefore, what you should actually think about is: What needs can your product meet the needs of business owners and bosses? Why does he need your unmanned shelves?

In my opinion, bosses may need unmanned shelves to solve two problems: The first problem is how to show that they pay special attention to employees. The word "appear" is in quotation marks here, because I believe that most bosses really care about their employees, but sincerity also needs to be shown in some ways; the second question is: how to improve employees' work efficiency. For example, it would be great if the time employees spent running to convenience stores could be spent on work.

If you can solve these two problems, business owners will have a reason to need you. So how to implement it specifically? Let me first provide you with two ideas here.

Provide lunch-friendly items on the shelves that won’t go bad. It can be used as lunch because if employees can scan the QR code in the office and finish their lunch, they can continue working. This is a good way for bosses to improve employee work efficiency. At the same time, the food must not be easily spoiled. This is because there is no need to replace and restock frequently, which can reduce the operating costs of unmanned shelves. In addition, in addition to essential necessities such as mineral water and cola, putting some Red Bull, coffee and other foods on the shelves that can improve work efficiency will definitely be welcomed by business owners.

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

Let’s take a small example. Suppose a bag of potato chips sells for 3 yuan in a general retail store, and the price on your unmanned shelf is 2 yuan. Why can it be sold cheaper? Don't think that this is entirely your fault. In essence, it is because the boss gave you a place, so you save the rent of the convenience store, and you do not need a powerful device like a vending machine, so you save the manufacturing cost. These are opportunities given to you by business owners. Then you can reflect the boss's behavior on the product.

For example, if the original price of this product is 3 yuan, but now it sells for 2 yuan, you can put a note on the product saying: The boss subsidizes 1 yuan. If you put a label like "The boss subsidized a few dollars" on each product, the boss's care for the employees will be shown, and you can use this logic and what I just mentioned to improve employee work efficiency. The method is to talk to the boss. I believe the boss will welcome you more at this time.

3. The third transaction structure, which is the final C-side

How to optimize this part? As an entrepreneur, I will definitely think of one thing from the employee's side: I really want to drink Coke, but it's 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 to the first two transaction structures, this transaction structure is easier for entrepreneurs to think of. Therefore, your competitors may be the convenience store downstairs and the elevator room, or even the vending machines on the first floor. At this time, you may need to constantly reinforce to the end consumers how cheap and time-saving your unmanned shelves are, so that changes may occur.

Okay, let me summarize. We call the business model of unmanned shelves B2B2C unmanned business. There are three transaction structures in it. What entrepreneurs have to do is to optimize these three transaction structures respectively.

For the first transaction structure - the B-side of unmanned shelves, we need to pay attention to the relationship between balancing costs. On the one hand, there are saved manufacturing costs and rental costs, and on the other hand, there is increased trust cost. This model can only be established when the former is greater than the latter. As for how to improve the probability of success, solutions must be found through data from actual operations.

The second transaction structure - the B-side of the business owner, when facing him, you have to know that you have to solve the boss's two needs: one is to "appear" that he cares about his employees; the other is to improve Employee productivity.

The third transaction structure - the final consumer, here you have to remember: if this business model can be established, the final driving force must come from someone buying the product. Letting consumers profit is the starting point of everything. This is the transaction structure that everyone can easily think of, but you must not ignore the first two transaction structures.