Offline retail stores have not lived smoothly in recent years. Not only has physical supermarkets in China ushered in a wave of closed-door trends, even the Japanese convenience stores that dwell on national culture are currently facing embarrassing dilemmas. According to a data released by the Japan Franchise Association, the flow of convenience stores throughout Japan has slowed since the start of 5 years ago, and has continued to decline in the past year.
Wal-Mart, as the giant of the offline retail industry, is naturally immune to the impact. After assessing approximately 11,600 stores worldwide, it immediately shut down 269 stores. At the 2015 investor conference, Wal-Mart's market value was already slightly lower than Amazon's, and fell by 20 billion US dollars in a short period of time.
Neil Sanders, CEO of Conlumino Consulting, stated:
“Walmart’s practice of closing US stores represents a significant change in the retail landscape in the past few years. Physical stores are still very necessary, but the priorities are not as good as before.â€
Wal-Mart is not without an electricity supplier base. They opened their own online platform, Walmart.com, as early as 1996. However, the content of the website has not been expanded since then and only the company's information is displayed over the four-year period. The retail giant has been catching a glimpse of the e-commerce platform after more than a decade, and its e-commerce business has increased by 29% in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Wal-Mart is gradually increasing the pace of sweetness. They have established a technology incubator called Store NO.8 in Silicon Valley. With the help of this incubator, the e-commerce business will be able to add VR/AR and unmanned delivery. , artificial intelligence and other personalized shopping options.
However, whether the use of emerging technologies alone can help them break through? The answer is that this is not yet possible.
The development of e-commerce business mainly depends on the support of “traditional departmentsâ€
In the second half of last year, Ali vigorously promoted his VR+ shopping strategy. He not only invited the newly-created dark horse Magic Leap to endorse but also demonstrated the “future of online shopping†on the stage of the shopping festival. When its practical application appeared in the double eleventh, consumers could only touch the back of the head to indicate that they had been given a glimpse of these "lace concepts."
The elaborate modeling and interactive elements on HTC Vive were eventually replaced by the panoramas in the mobile platform. The products included in VR shopping were limited to the very few products in overseas stores. Not only that, for the high demand for mobile bandwidth and traffic, so that immersed shopping at any time and place became an empty talk.
According to information from Wal-Mart, they currently have 172 large distribution points in the United States. Their activity space is 11 million square meters, which largely guarantees the speed of distribution and delivery guarantee. On the other hand, they are relying on volume advantages to expand their “Huiyi†brand, trying to directly provide consumers with high-quality and cheap products, in order to ease the pressure on other online platforms, and for their own e-commerce The platform provides the foundation.
The stocks, logistics, and commodity richness involved in traditional retailing are still hot spots for the e-commerce platform. Wal-Mart has its own long-term accumulation in these areas, so it can gradually return to the second position in the nation.
Virtual reality also cannot support the retail industry. Giants all understand this truth.
Before Wal-Mart started the VR project, Amazon had already played in the VR field for a few years. Not only has Crytek, a game engine development team who has lived for a long time, launched Lumberyard related to VR, but since the beginning of last year it began recruiting and seeking senior VR software development engineers.
However, Amazon does not seem to intend to put these resources into the e-commerce business. They are mainly targeted at Twitch-related live broadcast services. Although we cannot rule out the possibility that Amazon will use Twitch as the core and start VR digital shopping, at least there is no sign yet.
Interestingly, Wal-Mart has for the time being not used virtual reality as a center of its e-commerce business. According to a report by Bloomberg, the purpose of Wal-Mart's incubator establishment is to integrate various emerging technologies and put them into daily operations.
We can regard AR/VR as an optional interface for purchasing environment. After acquiring orders, we can quickly plan distribution routes through artificial intelligence and machine algorithms. Finally, we can complete the last one of the e-commerce business by a robotic unmanned delivery army. ring. From this point of view, virtual reality can be said to be a "header" with lighter weight.
How to change consumer behavior is the primary problem faced by emerging technologies
VR can't change the format of e-commerce alone. What about the entire technology matrix? Although the use of these technologies is still “virtual†in the eyes of some people, this is not the case.
Amazon has a long history of planning automated supermarkets. They have introduced visual identity and machine learning technology into the quality control system to reduce costs and strengthen quality assurance. The Jet.com acquired by Wal-Mart also has its own set of commodity algorithms, which are biased towards the calculation of the lowest transportation costs, and eventually transfer the savings to commodity discounts, which makes them more than 10% lower than the average market price. .
On the hardware side, delivery robots have also appeared frequently in recent days. Marble first brought his work to the streets of San Francisco. Starship even took part in the drafting of a bill in Virginia, trying to make these four-party gadgets “legitimate.†Take to the street. Although the progress of emerging technologies is not as fast as we thought, retail companies such as Amazon and Wal-Mart are trying to use these things to subtly change people's spending habits.
However, the two retail giants have taken different paths. Wal-Mart, which started out as a traditional retailer, has been on the e-commerce road for many years. This may be attributed to its old business model. They cannot tolerate long-term investments that are not profitable for scale. Fortunately, the massive body finally allowed it to reverse.
On the issue of changing consumer behavior, Amazon is currently going further. Amazon Go is a good example. Its exemption-based system allows customers to directly leave the store after picking up the goods for visual sensing and machine learning. This has to be said to be a more convenient experience.
Emerging technologies, including virtual reality, cannot be used overnight in the e-commerce business. However, they are still an opportunity to change consumer buying habits. Although Amazon’s progress in this area appears to be a little faster, it is currently online retailing. It's still more "traditional" content. In addition, the single technological innovation is no more than that year, it seems that it can only cause embarrassment.
ZGAR electronic cigarette uses high-tech R&D, food grade disposable pod device and high-quality raw material. All package designs are Original IP. Our designer team is from Hong Kong. We have very high requirements for product quality, flavors taste and packaging design. The E-liquid is imported, materials are food grade, and assembly plant is medical-grade dust-free workshops.
From production to packaging, the whole system of tracking, efficient and orderly process, achieving daily efficient output. We pay attention to the details of each process control. The first class dust-free production workshop has passed the GMP food and drug production standard certification, ensuring quality and safety. We choose the products with a traceability system, which can not only effectively track and trace all kinds of data, but also ensure good product quality.
We offer best price, high quality Vape Device, E-Cigarette Vape Pen, Disposable Device Vape,Vape Pen Atomizer, Electronic cigarette to all over the world.
Much Better Vaping Experience!
E-Cigarette Vape Pen,Disposable Device Vape,PCC SET, Vape Pen Atomizer,Latest Disposable E-Cigarette OEM vape pen,OEM electronic cigarette
Shenzhen WeiKa Technology Co.,Ltd. , https://www.szvape-pen.com