At first glance, there is nothing unusual about the BingoBox store—shelves stacked with snacks line the walls, tempting passers-by through the glass windows. But on closer inspection, BingoBox is no ordinary store. The door opens only after customers scan a QR code to enter, and there is no cashier to tally up purchases—just a lone checkout counter in a corner. The Shanghai-based company is one of many unmanned store operators opening outlets all over China, hoping to improve slim profit margins in the retail business by reducing staff costs.
“If capital costs rise quickly, that puts greater pressure on low-margin businesses like convenience stores and supermarkets,” said Andrew Song, an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities. “In China, manpower costs have been rising relatively quickly.”
However, the futuristic vision of shopping without a checkout person is still in progress. A reporter who visited a BingoBox store in Shanghai was briefly locked in when he was trying to exit without making a purchase. Although a sign near the exit stated that empty-handed customers can leave by scanning a QR code, no QR code was to be found. Repeated calls to the customer service hotline went unanswered.
Another unmanned operation in China, Take Go, only allows one customer in the shop at a time because of technology limitations in using multiple cameras for scanning customers’ faces.
The idea of unmanned stores first caught the world’s attention when the largest US online retailer announced its cashier-less store, which is only available to employees for now. Since then, some technology companies in China, including the e-commerce firm Alibaba Group, have launched their own versions of unmanned stores.
Embedded with technology such as RFID tags, mobile payment systems and facial recognition systems, such stores collect valuable data that give operators a better idea of consumers’ preference and buying habits, which can then be used to optimize the operation and make more efficient inventory decisions. For BingoBox, lower operating costs also mean it can afford to expand its reach to areas with less foot traffic, according to Chen Zilin, the founder and CEO of BingoBox.
【小题1】What makes the BingoBox store look like an ordinary convenience store?| A．Shelves stacked with goods. | B．A lone checkout counter. |
| C．No cashier to check out. | D．Entering by scanning a QR code. |
| A．The customers prefer mobile payment systems. |
| B．The unmanned stores help improve profit with lower labor costs. |
| C．The employees focus on consumers’ preference and buying habits. |
| D．The operators care more about operations and inventory decisions. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．Nowadays all stores should be equipped with advanced technology. |
| B．The operators collect data about consumers’ preference and buying habits. |
| C．BingoBox made wiser decisions based on the data collected in unmanned stores. |
| D．The operators can open unmanned supermarkets in more remote places with low costs. |
