京东加入无人零售大战
由于被半自动化商店的高效和新颖所吸引，中国消费者已经接受了通过脸部识别和手机支付来购买从快餐到情趣用品的各种商品。
“Sometimes when you are in a bad mood, you just want to be able to get in and out without any hassle,” said Joyce Zhang, a teacher at a Beijing elementary school.
“有时当你心情不好的时候，你只想走进商店，拿了东西就走，”北京的一位小学老师Joyce Zhang说。
Ms Zhang frequents one of 12 cashier-less locations opened by start-up Xiaomai. Customers scan bar codes on items using Tencent’s Chinese messaging app WeChat before paying with WeChat Wallet.
这位女士经常光顾初创企业小麦公社(Xiaomai)经营的无人便利店。该公司目前共有12家门店。消费者先用微信公众号上的“扫码自购”扫一扫商品上的条形码，然后用微信钱包进行在线支付。
Ecommerce giant JD.com is the latest to branch into automation, announcing a tie-up last week with Hong Kong-listed developer China Overseas Land & Investment to build hundreds of self-serve convenience stores and 1,500 medicine dispensers across China.
电子商务巨擘京东(JD.com)是最新一家进入无人零售领域的公司。该公司上周宣布，与香港上市的地产开发商中国海外发展有限公司(China Overseas Land & Investment)合作，在中国开设数百家自助式便利店和1500台售药机。
In so doing, JD.com is chasing competitors such as Alibaba that are developing their own cashier-less outlets. Rising labour costs and high turnover among blue-collar jobs has price sensitive online retailers looking to apply logistics and online payment systems to automate shopping.
京东此举旨在追赶阿里巴巴等正在开发自己的无人零售店的竞争对手。由于蓝领工作岗位劳动力成本上涨，且离职率居高不下，对价格十分敏感的网上零售商被迫将其物流和在线支付系统运用到无人零售领域。
“With automated stores, you get rid of any chance of bad interaction with a miserable or untrained human being,” said Shaun Rein, managing director for market consultancy CMR China. “They also want to look cool. Things like facial recognition still have a big wow factor among Chinese consumers.”
“有了无人店铺，你就可以避免与一个很差劲的、或未受过训练的人进行让你不悦的互动，”市场咨询公司CMR中国的董事总经理雷小山(Shaun Rein)表示，“消费者也希望看起来很酷。面部识别等技术对于中国消费者而言仍然是令人惊叹的新鲜事物。”
Some automated outlets are less like stores and more like walk-in vending machines. Chief among them is BingoBox, which this year installed 5,000 of its compact units selling snacks and fresh fruit across major Chinese cities.
一些无人便利店不太像商店，更像是人可以进入的自动售货机。首屈一指的要算“缤果盒子”(BingoBox)。该品牌今年在中国主要城市开设了5000个销售零食和新鲜水果的紧凑型便利店。
Meanwhile, Alibaba has spearheaded the push into “new retail”, buying up physical stores to give shopping experience a high-tech twist. It spent a total of $5.5bn in 2017 to buy private brick-and-mortar retailer Intime and a one third stake in Sun Art Retail, one of China’s biggest supermarket chains.
与此同时，阿里巴巴引领着打造“新零售”生态的潮流。该公司大举收购实体零售店，在购物体验中注入高科技元素。阿里巴巴2017年共斥资55亿美元，将实体零售商银泰商业(Intime)私有化，并收购了中国最大的连锁超市营运商之一高鑫零售(Sun Art Retail)三分之一的股权。
“I think [facial recognition] is probably an even safer way [than passwords] to manage your online activities as everyone’s face is unique,” said Zhang Lin, a Beijing university student, hopping off a shared bike before swiping in to the Xiaomai store with his face.
“我认为用‘脸部识别’来管理你的在线活动，甚至可能比‘密码’更安全，因为每个人的脸都是独一无二的，”一位北京的大学生张林(音译)说，他跳下共享单车，“刷脸”走进了一家小麦便利店。
At Xiaomai’s convenience stores, visitors record a scan of their faces during their first visit that allows them to enter the building without scanning a QR code during subsequent trips.
在小麦便利店，消费者在首次进店时，系统便记录了他们的脸部扫描图像，他们以后进入同一家店，就无需再扫描二维码(QR)。
Many of China’s biggest mobile apps allow users to submit a selfie to log in, including Ant Financial, Alibaba’s online payments affiliate, and car-hailing service Didi Chuxing, which uses facial recognition to verify drivers’ identities.
中国许多用户规模最大的移动应用程序允许用户提交自拍照进行登录，其中包括阿里巴巴的在线支付业务蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)、叫车服务滴滴出行，后者使用脸部识别来验证司机的身份。
Retailers such as JD.com and Alibaba plan to make use of chips that are already embedded in second-generation identification cards required of all Chinese citizens. The same technology allows supermarkets to automatically detect which products enter and leave the store.
诸如京东和阿里巴巴等零售商计划利用中国第二代居民身份证中嵌入的芯片。超市也利用同样的技术自动监测进货与销售情况。
