How does Ebrun make physical retail interconnected? Some people say that the key lies in everyone being online and everything being online. Renren Online means that customers are online, employees are online, and partners are online; Wuwu Online means that all equipment in the store is online, management is online, everything is online, and all work tasks on the operation side are online. On the basis of everything being online, online and offline integration can be achieved.
To realize these two "online", it is inseparable from the popularization of the Internet of Things. With the rise of new retail terminals and the improvement of related supply chain services, it means that unmanned stores and intelligent new terminals are evolving into one of the most promising and potential business sectors of physical commerce in the future.
The essence of these concepts, new retail and unmanned retail, is to realize intelligence and lead to digitalization, and their core technology relies on Internet of Things technology.
As a technology company under BOE Group that focuses on industrial digital solutions, BOE Digital Technology Co., Ltd. ("BOE Digital" for short) is making every offline physical product "online in real time", aiming to Become a leader in the domestic new retail and smart logistics fields.
Currently, BOE Digital has provided retail IoT solutions to more than 250 well-known retailers around the world, and has served more than 50 domestic companies including Alibaba, JD.com, Adidas, Anta, Watsons, China Resources, Walmart, and Suning. A well-known domestic brand that provides software and hardware integration solutions for the retail Internet of Things; internationally, it cooperates with well-known retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, Carrefour, Monoprix, Casino, Ikea, and Euronics, greatly improving the operational efficiency of retailers.
Interviewed company: BOE Digital Technology Co., Ltd.;
Interviewee and Title: Bai Feng, Vice President of BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., CEO of BOE Digital Technology Co., Ltd.;
Industry: Internet of Things industry;
Yibang Industry: What level do you think the digitalization of this industry is at, what is its development trend, and can you make judgments from both qualitative and quantitative dimensions?
Bai Feng: At present, China's physical retail has entered an unprecedented cold period. Affected by multiple pressures such as community group buying and online e-commerce, customer traffic continues to decline, and most supermarkets have suffered significant losses. At the same time, the current digitalization level of physical retail enterprises is still very low. Some are even superficial digitalization. It is believed that developing an online e-commerce APP or opening up home-based business is digitalization. This understanding is still relatively superficial. Learning from the painful experience, carrying out in-depth digital changes, using digital means to improve efficiency, and returning to the essence of retail are currently important means to solve physical retail problems. Digitalization provides a methodology and way of thinking that truly puts the consumer at the center, matches the market with the product, matches the product with the consumer, and completely returns to the essence of retail.
Yibang Industry: What are the main aspects of your company’s value in industrial digitalization, and what are its specific products and services?
Bai Feng: The digital transformation of the retail industry focuses on the digitization of customer behavior and the digitization of product information. The digitization of customer behavior is mainly based on ensuring a good user experience and digitally captures and enters the entire offline purchase process. The digitization of product information is mainly about the entry, display and dynamic management of product information, which has broad market prospects. . The collection of core data requires an overall solution that integrates software and hardware with electronic price tags and intelligent display systems as core hardware. The market potential for intelligent upgrading in the retail industry is huge. At present, we have provided retail IoT solutions to more than 250 well-known retailers around the world. We have served well-known brands such as Alibaba, JD.com, Adidas, Anta, Watsons, China Resources, Walmart, Suning, and Carrefour, and provided services to more than 30,000 stores. It has developed solutions such as intelligent price change systems, shelf management systems, information release systems, and auxiliary picking systems based on digital platforms, which have greatly improved the operational efficiency of retailers.
Yibang Industry: What is your entry point for digital transformation/empowerment of factories or other industry chain partners? The more specific the better, why are you doing these transformations, and why are your partners willing to accept your digital transformation? Can you talk about it based on one or several cases?
Bai Feng: BOE Digital uses artificial intelligence, big data and other technologies to create a business service operation platform relying on electronic price tags, intelligent commercial display terminals, etc. to provide offline retail enterprises with "hardware products + software platform + The overall digital solution of "scenario application" improves the operational efficiency of offline retail enterprises. Specifically, it includes the following solutions:
Intelligent price change system: This system relies on electronic price tags and the Jeegy messaging system to realize automatic price changes for tens of thousands of price tags. At present, more and more offline retail industries use prices for promotions, especially fresh products, which require several price adjustments a day. However, the replacement of traditional paper price tags is not only inefficient, but also causes a large amount of paper waste. There is even a risk of "price tag gate" where the display price does not match the system price. The above problems have been completely solved by using BOE Digital's intelligent price changing system. Currently, this system can also make use of big data, such as achieving optimal pricing based on customer flow, weather, time of day, etc. and displaying it through price tags, which greatly improves store pricing efficiency.
Auxiliary picking system: Currently, more and more stores are connected to home delivery services. How to quickly and accurately carry out in-store picking is a headache faced by stores. The previous solution was for the clerk to go to the shelves according to the order requirements, search and compare them repeatedly to avoid getting the wrong goods, which was very timely. We have done tests and found that generally the picking speed of an order is about 30 minutes. BOE's auxiliary picking system uses the information release system and the intelligent LED display system on the electronic price tag. When the clerk receives the customer's order, the price tag on the shelf where the corresponding product is located will flash according to certain rules. The clerk only needs to Just pick where you need to see the flashing lights, which not only avoids picking up wrong goods but also improves picking efficiency. The picking speed is reduced from the previous 30 minutes to about 15 minutes.
Shelf management system: This system uses electronic price tags, smart cameras, large commercial display screens, etc. as its core hardware. It also uses BOE’s self-developed image recognition system to realize pre-alerts for shelf management and shortages. . The core of this system is BOE's core patented Captana system, which flashes the LED on the price tag and outputs a string of binary codes for product identification, similar to identifying an ID card for each SKU. In this way, by identifying this set of ID cards, products can be quickly identified, and combined with the camera and image recognition system, out-of-stock or low-stock reminders can be issued in advance to reduce the store's shelf vacancy rate. This system also won the CCFA Annual Supply Chain Award.
Yibang Industry: How do you understand the application of data, algorithms and AI in the digitalization of this industry? What are the specific applications and benefits in your business?
Bai Feng: Data is the basis of digitalization, and algorithms and AI are the means of digitalization. Judging from the system solutions exemplified above, all of them will use these core technologies, and the benefits are also very significant.
Yibang Industry: Can you describe the industrial ecosystem that your company uses digital systems to connect, what are their roles, and how to drive cooperation among ecological partners?
Bai Feng: The IaaS layer of BOE Digital’s smart retail digital system is based on AIoT intelligent hardware and cloud computing and encryption systems; the PaaS layer focuses on accurate customer portraits, multi-dimensional visual signboards, and full-process monitoring and operation; the SaaS layer It focuses on scenario applications and provides intelligent price changing systems, auxiliary picking systems, membership marketing systems, shelf/inventory management systems, etc.
Yibang Industry: Can you use one or two sentences to describe your company’s positioning, your company’s industrial digital value, and your corporate capital market imagination space?
Bai Feng: BOE Digital is a technology company under BOE Group that provides retail IoT solutions and is committed to technology empowering retail.
Its core business is to use artificial intelligence, big data and other technologies to build a business service operation platform relying on electronic price tags, intelligent commercial display terminals, etc. to provide offline retail enterprises with an overall digital solution of "hardware products + software platform + scenario application" , helping offline retail companies improve operational efficiency.
Yibang Industry: What role does it play?
Bai Feng: Digitalization is an important means to help offline retail companies get out of the current predicament and achieve rebirth. I believe that offline physical stores will exist for a long time, but it is indeed time for major surgery and major changes. Digitalization is an important means of change. As mentioned before, low-level digitalization cannot save retail companies. What is needed now is in-depth digital transformation with customer experience and operational efficiency as the core, and a digital transformation that returns to the essence of the retail industry. Use digital means to simplify, optimize, and integrate the operating processes of the original enterprise, and integrate the entire operating system of intelligent location selection, ordering system, inventory management, commodity management, member management, and employee management into a whole through digitalization. I believe that online The vitality of physical retail will come back soon. BOE is currently the world's largest provider of smart retail physical store solutions. Relying on self-developed IoT core devices, combined with AI and big data processing capabilities, it provides scenario-based software and hardware integration systems for offline physical stores, including intelligent price changing systems, Auxiliary picking systems, membership marketing systems, shelf/inventory management systems, etc. Currently, it has provided services to more than 250 brands and more than 30,000 stores around the world, including well-known international and domestic enterprises such as Walmart, Amazon, JD.com, Adidas, Watsons, Anta, China Resources, and Xiaomi.