这lights are going out at malls across the United States with more than 20 major retail bankruptcies in 2017. As of today, store closures have skyrocketed to 7,000 doors throughout the nation, affecting such iconic brands as Toys R Us, Walgreens, Gap, Sam’s Club, The Children’s Place, Hallmark, Stride Ride, Aeropostale, Wet Seal, The Limited and Walmart. At the same time, investment in retail technology has never been higher, especially retail robots.
A month after Walmart laid off close to 10,000 workers with the shuttering of Sam’s Club, it announced a new partnership with Pittsburgh-based robot manufacturer, Bossa Nova. The mechatronics innovator will begin将库存扫描机器人推向50个沃尔玛地点. The retail robots will automate the tasks previously held by inventory associates by autonomously navigating around the store to check the shelf display, inventory position, and pricing of the big box’s 200,000 items.
As Martin Hitch, founder of Bossa Nova describes, “We look at the depth of the shelves, so we’re able to see whether a product is fully stocked, completely out of stock, or some level of depletion in between.” Hitch’s robot then sends an alert to a store associate to physically restock the shelves or fix the item in question.
这investment in retail robots is part of Walmart’s $11 billion capital expense over the next two years to better compete with Amazon and other etailers. Brick and mortar companies, like Walmart, are doubling down in their efforts to increase operating margins by reducing payroll. In addition, store planners are keenly focused on halting consumer attrition and lost revenue opportunities.
2015年，CNBC报告零售商库存“缺货”成本$600 billion in lost revenue, which was up by almost 40% from three years prior. According to thestudy，由于技术过时和人员懒惰，大多数造成销售和不良计划的根源原因。CNBC声称：“在过去一年中，有75％的美国成年人在商店中遇到了一家不可用的产品……因此，大多数这些沮丧的购物者决定在另一家零售商购物或完全没有买任何东西。”通常，其他零售商原来是沃尔玛的克星亚马逊。
Simbe, Softbank Partner on Retail Robots
Bossa Nova与沃尔玛的协议是新兴的零售机器人市场中众多公告中的第一个。软银机器人（SBR）和Simbe Roboticsforged a global partnership in April 2018. Simbe is the brain child of Mirza Shah, Willow Garage alum, who founded the startup after the folding of the famed incubator. In 2015, Shah and his partner Brad Bogolea joined the HAX Accelerator to unveil Tally. At HAX’s demo day, the two founders boasted of creating “the world’s first autonomous shelf auditing and analytics solution” (see2015 article).
“SBR and Simbe will expand deployments of Tally inJapan，，，，北美andEuropein the near future and will commercialize more broadly over the coming years,” the companies said.
SBR的首席战略官史蒂夫·卡林，解释说：“ Simbe团队取得的成就真是令人惊讶。他们专注于通过执行卓越为客户带来价值，这使他们成为零售业务和机器人空间的领导者。我们很高兴能够帮助他们扩大在全球市场的影响力。”
这“reach” Carlin refers to is more than just a sales channel built on the success of 20,000 deployed Peppers, it is the beginning of the robotic store of the future. The joint statement further declares: “In the near future, the two companies will explore the ability to connect their robotic systems, Tally and Pepper, to further positively affect the retail experience by helping customers quickly and easily find specific products.”
oshbot Kicks Off Retail Robotics Movement
美国大型零售商在2014年在Lowe的Orchard Supply硬件商店中部署的首个已知的客户服务机器人部署。这oshbot，，，，piloted by San Francisco-based机器人，两年后最终变成了Lowebot。Lowebot使用了同伴专有的NAVII自动零售服务平台，该平台将销售合伙人的职能与股票经理结合在一起。
劳氏win-wi网站推广计划n for customers, employees and store operations: “For the customer, LoweBot is able to find products in multiple languages and effectively navigate the store. As LoweBot helps customers with simple questions, it enables employees to spend more time offering their expertise and specialty knowledge to customers. Furthermore, LoweBot is able to assist with inventory monitoring in real-time, which helps detect patterns that might guide future business decisions.” The retailer has thus far rolled out 11 LoweBots at locations around San Francisco.
CosyBeing Piloted by Walgreens
这latest entry into the retail robotics space isCosy（（Cognitiveo有责任sy词干）来自University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab. Last February, COSY announced the completion of its $2.25 million seed round that included such strategic investors as Intel Capital and Safeguard Scientifics. The capital will be invested in furthering the development of its product, Scout.
Cosyis currently pilot testing Scout in Walgreens, specially providing “3D semantic mapping of their retail stores” to examine the in-store merchandising displays and product placements relative to the retailer’s planograms.
In explaining how his systems work versus other players in the industry, founder Jonas Cleveland elaborates, “We combine machine vision with artificial intelligence to enable a robot to drive around the store and map out the store’s architectural elements, as well as recognizing all the products on the shelves.” Cleveland claims that Scout solves a real pain point for retailers, “Every single bricks-and-mortar retailer who has gondola shelving has folks who are doing this surveying task, and they hate doing it. It’s tedious and mundane. They would rather be interacting with the customer or doing another job.”
Many Retail Jobs are Tedious & Mundane
替换“乏味和平凡”任务的想法是机器人的圣杯。问题在于，根据McKinsey＆Company的说法，所有零售工作（收银员，储藏者和问候者）中有一半属于这一类别。在商店关闭后，已经将近25万人被解雇了，领导美国劳工统计局预测，在未来十年内，技术可以用技术取代超过700万零售员工。
As retail robots roll onto Main Street, innovators are sure to face increased scrutiny by customers nostalgic for the human touch. Even Hitch recalls the early response to his robots at Walmart, “We have witnessed a couple of people walk past and just kick it.”
这impact of the retail apocalypse will be discussed on June 13th @ 6pm in NYC with Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang and New York Assemblyman Clyde Vanel at the next RobotLab on “The Politics Of Automation” –Reserve Today!
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