AI+ retail? Let's have an experience first.
When customers enter a store, the sales guide can clearly know whether the customer is a new customer or a regular customer, what products the customer has consumed in the store, their spending power, the customer's route to the store and the products of interest through the front-end information of the mobile phone. At the checkout, only the face recognition is required to verify the identity of the member, and customers can pay quickly. This is in the case of wearing a mask in the epidemic, the accuracy of facial accurate passenger flow can reach more than 90%. On the other side of
, customers go to a restaurant to eat, choose delicious meals, put the dishes into the checkout counter, "AI self-service smart settlement with only three steps and three seconds at the fastest", which can quickly complete the payment.
These are the actual experiences brought to us by Uluoke’s smart retail and smart catering at the 22nd China Retail Expo.
brings these experiences. It is that Yoluo has been running for 11 years all the way to today, and has been developing to the head of the AI field. Although it is not easy, it has established industry barriers and set a benchmark for the development of the industry. We interviewed Shen Xiuping, Chairman and CEO of Yoluoke, and discovered the core password behind it. Today, we interpret through several key points.
(Shen Xiuping, founder and CEO of Yoluoke)
1
Tipping point.
Digitalization of the retail industry has become a mandatory topic
"Digital China Index Report (2020)" pointed out that in 2019, the growth rate of the Digital China Index continued to remain at a high level of 73.2%, representing the continuous growth of China's digitalization level. PwC's recent report also stated that the epidemic is driving the digital transformation of China's retail industry.
We believe that digitalization has ushered in an "inflection point" at this juncture. But for players on this track, it is difficult to grasp this node, behind which is long-term investment. And Yoluo is undoubtedly ahead.
In Shen Xiuping's view, he waited for a tipping point. "11 years of development, we divided it into three stages. The first stage: Internetization. We take root in the field of computer vision and put the camera on the cloud. The second stage: Productization. Use the camera to help customers do data collection and analysis , Do management. The third stage: AI technology breakthrough. More business scenarios require AI technology to achieve it."
In fact, the commercial application of AI is still in its infancy, much like the period around 2000 The Internet, but 20 years later, the Internet has brought about tremendous changes to today's business environment. The reform of the retail industry by AI will also be a historical trend. In the future, this market will also experience exponential growth. What
now puts in front of brands/retailers is that digitalization is already a must. But how to choose? How can we gain first-hand advantage during the turning point period? This should start from the "pain points" of traditional industries.
2
Penetrate the whole scene.
The fundamental solution to customer needs is to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
According to statistics from relevant agencies, in 2019, the total retail sales of consumer goods has exceeded 40 trillion yuan, making it the second largest consumer market in the world. Even under the influence of the epidemic this year, from January to October, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 31,190 billion yuan. New consumption is driving the entire retail industry to run fast.
We see that in various sectors, shoes and apparel, cosmetics, home furnishings, etc., have maintained a steady growth rate over the years. However, most of the traditional retail companies we have contacted, especially some chain store operators, their digital transformation is often just the application of more tools, without accurate data to get through, let alone digital decision-making.
Shen Xiuping said that the pain point of the traditional retail industry is that the original cash register data, CRM and other data analysis dimensions are not enough, and the consumer has not been fully connected. Use AI technology to help them solve difficult points, such as drainage, marketing, management, people and goods yards.
But there is also a challenge. The needs of businesses are actually very diverse. For example, shoes and clothing, catering and beauty are very different in terms of category and scene requirements. How can we achieve full-scene penetration?
Youluoke will deepen "modular products" according to the needs of the scene. Our products will have many application modules, and each module can adapt to the needs of different industries. Shelf of our productThe bottom layer of the structure is a video cloud, which connects all the multi-point smart cameras to one platform. The middle layer is a data collection, which outputs various types of comprehensive data. The application layer is modularized. In the future, hundreds of modules may be applicable to different industries and different customer needs. Form a three-tier product model. Shen Xiuping said.
not only needs to face brand owners/retailers, but in order to enable AI to better integrate scenarios, Yoluo also cooperates with segmented service companies such as ERP and CRM for in-depth industry services. According to Shen Xiuping, we export to partners through the paas platform. We build an ecological chain to allow them to quickly advance the market. They themselves can quickly bring our products and technologies to our users and let them use them. At present, Tencent, UFIDA, Hisense, etc. are all partners of Yoluoke. In our opinion, the way
builds an ecological chain, on the one hand, it can deeply penetrate and serve different industries, and at the same time it can speed up its expansion. The stronger the relationship with ecological partners, the stronger the stability of its rooted market.
From the performance point of view, Uluo's business currently covers footwear, catering, medicine, automobiles, fast-moving consumer goods, accessories and cosmetics, real estate and property, beauty salons and other industries. Accumulatively, there are 1.656 million signed customer stores, and there are 2000+ service outlets nationwide.
3
3-wheel drive.
Sync data, computing power, and algorithms
Joe Weimanjo. Weiman, the father of "cloud economics", believes that new retail is a technology-driven change, and software and hardware technologies are very important to today's retail industry ( Including warehousing robots, tracking systems, recommendation algorithms, using big data for marketing and retail analysis, etc.). What aspects will
AI's actual application of smart retail manifest? Let’s take a look at the overall process. From the consumer’s passing through the store (statistics)-entering the store (precise shopping guide)-visiting the store (behavior path)-hot zone (commodity recommendation)-settlement (pay with face), the whole transaction process depends on It is data, computing power, and algorithms that provide the most accurate and efficient information basis for front-end sales and back-end decision-making.
, for example, accurately counts key information such as store pass-through, in-store passenger flow, stay time, in-store conversion rate, transaction rate, etc., through accurate facial passenger flow.
uses AI algorithms to record and analyze customer shopping routes and coordinates, outline hot areas and paths in the store, help stores discover the shelf area, the associated value of products and customers, and guide store operations.
At the same time, Yoluo’s LBS site selection is based on Tencent’s ecological daily LBS positioning of 110 billion times, covering 1 billion terminals with super big data, guiding brand owners/retailers to accurately site selection. What is the effect of
? For example, Shen Xiuping said that a well-known footwear brand in China has 7,000 stores nationwide. The video cloud is used to solve the problem of patrolling stores, putting the supervision work online, and greatly saving the cost of patrolling stores. Using Yoluoke's facial equipment for customer flow can effectively solve the problem of shop assistants’ shopping guide conversion rate. At the same time, you can also solve cashier fraud problems such as the phenomenon of ordering through the shopkeeper, and each store can greatly reduce the loss every month.
We learned a set of data. Focusing on people, finances, goods, and markets in the retail industry, Yoluo has achieved a series of achievements in recent years, including reducing losses by up to 85%, increasing efficiency by more than 200%, and increasing revenue by 22%.
4
4 value points.
Synchronize data, computing power, and algorithms
Based on our insights into the new retail field, Yoluo is actually still building the future competitiveness of the brand/retailer on four value points, including digital stores and goods. Find people, private domain traffic, extreme efficiency.
digital store. currently has more than one million store decorations, all of which are still traditional decorations. The store of the future will be called Tech Decoration. This investment should gradually increase. Shen Xiuping said that assuming that a store has an AI investment of 100,000, based on the number of more than 20 million stores in the country, there is a 2 trillion market. And this is also a big trend.
We have especially noticed that many fast-growing companies choose Yoluoke, such as Bubble Mart, Shuyi Burning Grass, etc. The number of stores is growing rapidly, and they are all investing in digital stores.
is looking for someone. Z5z's previous business models were people looking for goods. The logic is that consumers have demand and then come to realityPurchase at physical stores/e-commerce platforms. The future is a model for goods to find people. It is precisely based on the digital capabilities of AI that can accurately match goods to consumers and promote conversion.
private domain traffic. and digital drive can find more potential customers for enterprises, and effectively manage and activate old customers to improve repurchase. Especially for the current construction of private domain traffic, Yoluo actually acts as an operator.
ultimate efficiency. 's previous decentralized ERP, CRM and other systems, through AI technology, realized a comprehensive digital connection between various organizations and business departments from the front-end to the back-end on the cloud platform, which not only improved the overall efficiency of the operation process, from the market to the decision-making The path between is also more efficient.
and for future strategic development. Shen Xiuping's vision is on two pieces:
First, continue to expand the market. In the next 3-5 years, it will increase the expansion of cooperative customers and cooperative stores to a few million level, and revenue will advance to the billions. Second, we learned that Yoluoke disclosed KPCB’s Series A financing in 2013. Since then, it has successively obtained many top domestic institutions including Tencent, Oriental Fortune, Licheng Assets, Zhongchang Data, and China Merchants Venture Capital. Investment, Uluok completed the C round of financing at the beginning of 2018. In the same year, Uluok's C+ round received another investment from Tencent. The overweight of the capital market also allows it to run faster on this track.
is written at the end.
"Retail Business Review" believes that AI+ retail will definitely develop in a double helix. As the blood, digitization is integrated into various application scenarios of "people and goods yard". It has broken the original retail logic and is reconstructing the business model. Digitalization will drive the exponential growth of various retail formats.
and Yoluoke is the "main attacker".
