Chinese coffee shop chain Luckin Coffee is entering the unstaffed retail market with the launch of its Luckin Coffee Express smart unmanned coffee machine and Luckin Pop Mini smart vending machine.

At a press conference this month, Luckin Coffee also disclosed that its number of self-operated stores reached 4507 by the end of 2019, which the company believes makes it the largest coffee chain by number of stores in Chin. In addition, the number of cumulative transacting customers reached over 40 million.

Featuring Swiss Schaerer coffee machines, IIAC Gold Award coffee bean blends from WBC coffee masters and other high-quality ingredients, Luckin Coffee Express provides freshly brewed drinks with the same quality and taste as in Luckin stores.

Luckin Pop Mini’s biggest attraction is ecommerce prices in vending machines. By working closely with global suppliers and achieving economies of scale through large volume procurement and customisation and reducing channel costs with the terminals, Luckin Coffee lets customers enjoy the convenience of vending machines and low prices comparable with ecommerce at the same time.

The unmanned terminals will cover locations including office buildings, campuses, airports, bus terminals, petrol stations, highway service stations and residential communities, supplementing the existing Luckin store network. These terminals are fully integrated with the chain’s technology and are empowered by IoT, big data, facial recognition and other technologies to create new customers experience.

“Luckin Coffee’s unmanned retail network, store footprint and ecommerce channels together form our proprietary omnichannel customer traffic network,” said Jenny Zhiya Qian, chief executive officer of Luckin Coffee. “With our value propositions of high quality, high affordability and high convenience, Luckin is rapidly becoming a well recognised, on-trend and mass market fast-moving consumer goods brand. Luckin Coffee is dedicated to building a closed-loop smart retail platform with our own customer traffic and our own products. We will continue to grow both own traffic and products, improve brand value, expand the scale of our platform, and create more value for our customers. Luckin Coffee is on track to realise our mission of being part of everyone’s life, starting with coffee.”

At the press conference, Luckin Coffee and global suppliers, including Pepsi, Nestle, Fonterra, Schaerer, LDC, Olam, Cofco, CJ, Yili, Mengniu, Orion Confectionery and Calbee, participated in the ceremony launching Luckin Coffee’s unmanned retail strategy.

The unmanned retail network should eliminate payroll and decoration costs, lower rental expenses and provide a better cost structure compared with that of small-format stores. As a result, Luckin Coffee is able to become closer to customers at lower transaction costs while ensuring product quality. The unmanned retail strategy should, the company hopes, fuel customer acquisition and increase customer purchase frequency for Luckin Coffee.

Luckin Coffee has pioneered a technology-driven retail model to provide coffee and other products of high quality, high affordability and high convenience to customers. Empowered by big data analytics, AI and proprietary technologies, Luckin Coffee aims to realise its mission to be part of everyone’s everyday life.

As of the end of 2019, Luckin Coffee operated 4507 stores across more than 40 cities in China. The company is headquartered in Xiamen, China.