Happy Lemon teams up with Alibaba-backed Koubei to integrate drink-making robot
The “smart store” is located in Shanghai.
Taiwanese bubble-tea chain Happy Lemon has teamed up with Alibaba Group’s local-services app Koubei to upgrade its in-store technology, including a new drink-making robot.
In the pilot “smart store” in Shanghai, customers have the option of buying their drinks at a counter manned by employees or purchasing via their smartphones for service by the robot.
Customers scan a QR code with the Koubei app, tick a few boxes to customize their drink, then wait for a text notification to pick up their tea at a smart locker, which opens when they tap a “pick-up” button on the app.
Koubei said the robot can make eight types of drinks with about 40 variations based on customer preferences for different amounts of ice and sugar – each taking about 90 seconds.
“The smart-store initiative is part of our journey to bring New Retail to food and beverage merchants,” said Guo Haodang, head of Koubei’s smart-store program. “We bring advanced technologies, such as our QR codes, intelligent pick-up lockers and robotic tea mixers, to merchants’ brick-and-mortar stores, helping the sector rethink how they sell and engage with consumers.”
Happy Lemon, which operates more than 1,000 stores worldwide, including in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and South Korea, is the latest company to join the smart-store program. Currently, there are now about 100 brands that have partnered with Koubei to upgrade their brick-and-mortar locations with in-store technology.
Happy Lemon is also working with Koubei to replicate this model at more of its stores across China.
“Aside from hardware innovations like with the robotic tea mixer, what’s more important to us are the big-data applications behind it,” Daniel Lee, deputy general manager of global marketing at Happy Lemon, said.
