Chinese electronics retailer Suning opened its second unmanned store equipping full face recognition payment system in Shanghai on November 6th, Chinese media The Paper is reporting. Unmanned stores are spreading all over China, and Shanghai is becoming an important base to test the market with Shanghai’s affluent and trendy consumers. In Shanghai, unmanned convenience store BingoBox […]
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Updated: Unmanned stores could see first big failure as Bianlifeng rumored to be pulling smart shelves from 38 Chinese cities
Bianlifeng (便利蜂), the operator of Chinese staff-less stores and smart vending machines, released a notice to its employees yesterday announcing that they will start pulling out vending machines from 38 cities in China an unnamed employee told Pingtu360. Except for the eight selected cities that they are currently testing the unmanned shelves in and the three […]
Video: We tested one of China’s unmanned stores and this is what we found
BingoBox is becoming one of the more vivid examples of how fast innovation is moving in China’s retail industry along with Alibaba’s initiative in unmanned stores powered by their face recognition technology. However, the concept isn’t without its own teething problems. A BingoBox in Shanghai was closed for being too hot and when we tried one ourselves, we […]
Chengdu’s first unmanned supermarket closes down after 4 months
Chengdu’s first unmanned supermarket GOGO无人超市 has reportedly shut down after only four months according to local reports (in Chinese). The unmanned shelf project, GOGO小超, run by the same Chengdu-based startup, Xiao Mang Guo Technology Limited, closed down months ago. At least 30 employees have not been paid on time; one former employee told the Chengdu […]
China’s answer to Amazon Go aims to conquer the unmanned frontier with facial recognition
Long-waited Amazon Go opened its door to the public in Seattle last week and there has been overall positive feedback. However, unmanned stores are definitely not a new concept for China’s tech-savvy consumers. Since May 2017, when Alibaba launched its first unmanned store with the focus word “new retail”, a flurry of Chinese tech companies has […]
Tencent shows off their vision for the future of unmanned retail
As “new retail” changes from jargon to oft-used phrase, Tencent has thrown their hat into the ring. However, they don’t plan on opening their own stores (the WeChat pop-up seems to have been exactly that). Rather they want to be the foundation to help the retail industry achieve two goals: the digital upgrade of stores and […]
Alibaba spends $2.88bln to partner with Auchan in new retail collaboration
After breaking another record with RMB 168.2 billion (more than $25.3 billion) in GMV achieved in 24 hours on Singles’ day, Alibaba is touting its foray into its new retail strategy as it announced today a strategic alliance with Auchan Retail S.A. and Ruentex Group that brings together their online and offline expertise to explore […]
China online retail sees rapid growth in the first half of 2017
In June 2017, the total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached RMB 3.9 trillion ($440 billion), up by 11.0% year-on-year, China Internet Watch is reporting. That is approximately the same amount Greece was loaned over a five year period for its bailout ($440 billion), meaning the amount of money Chinese consumer spent on consumer goods for one […]