Dingdang Quick Medicine Launches AI Robot, Smart Vending Machines, and Smart Pharmacy 3.0 System to Transform Pharmaceutical Retail

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat), August 29 — Pharmaceutical O2O platform “Dingdang Kuaiyao” held a strategic launch event yesterday, unveiling three products in one go: an AI robot, intelligent vending machines for medications, and the Smart Pharmacy 3.0 system, drawing significant attention from the industry.

Starting from pharmaceutical O2O, Dingdang Kuaiyao has gone further and further in the strategy of "technology" and "platform", constantly launching products that will have a profound impact on the pharmaceutical retail format.

Robotics and pharmaceutical retail may seem like entirely unrelated concepts, yet Dingdang Kuaiyao has managed to integrate the two in its own unique way.

According to VCBeat, Dingdang Kuaiyao has launched an AI robot named “Dingdang Dabai,” which leverages the “AI + pharmaceuticals” model to meet the growing demand for personalized and customized health services in the era of consumption upgrading, thereby expanding service offerings in intelligent health scenarios.

Yang Yibin, CEO of Dingdang Smart, representing the Dingdang Smart team, introduced “Dingdang Dabai,” stating that the robot is built on iFlytek’s speech and semantic recognition technology. It features natural language interaction capabilities, has collected and learned from a health and pharmaceutical knowledge base comprising nearly 40 million entries, can recognize and understand 20,000 sets of drug names and keywords, and enables comprehensive linguistic interaction within the context of robotic conversations.

Dingdang Smart CEO Yang Yibin Showcases “Dingdang Dabai” Robot

Dingdang Dabai also integrates facial recognition technology, enabling it to remember customers’ faces upon their visit. When a customer enters the store for the second time, the system can automatically recognize them, “much like an old friend,” and provide personalized recommendations based on the customer’s relevant data.

Yang Yibin also introduced that Dingdang Dabai has integrated physicians and pharmacists from WeDoctor and Dingdang Kuaiyao’s in-house team, enabling convenient consultations via remote video visits or the issuance of electronic prescriptions, thereby addressing the difficulty of purchasing prescription medications at pharmacies.

In terms of informatization, the Dingdang Dabai AI robot leverages the PaaS system, built on CRM and big data analytics, to provide users with intelligent professional services, including online medication reminders, medication consultation and follow-up, chronic disease management, and health prevention. This transforms the traditional many-to-many service model between pharmacy staff and customers into a hybrid model featuring comprehensive online AI-driven services and offline one-on-one differentiated precision marketing by staff.

In the future, Dingdang Dabai will expand into home-use scenarios. Leveraging speech recognition and semantic understanding, it will accompany family members, conduct health monitoring, and connect to medical platforms. It will also feature smart home control, household schedule management, entertainment and interaction with family members, as well as elderly care and assistance functions.

Essentially, it is understandable that the robot launched by Dingdang Kuaiyao serves as an excellent “storefront” for retail pharmacies, playing a key role in attracting and retaining customers, thereby becoming a traffic gateway for pharmaceutical retail.

Notably, alongside the launch of Dingdang Dabai, the Dingdang Smart Health Management System has also introduced a new self-service medication vending machine, specifically designed for Dingdang Smart Pharmacy.

This self-service medication vending machine stocks over 400 common pharmaceutical products, including medications for ENT (ear, nose, and throat) conditions, colds and coughs, dermatological applications, family planning supplies, and mosquito repellents and heatstroke prevention items. Prior to stocking the machine, basic information, production dates, and expiration dates of all medications are entered into the system. When medications approach their expiration dates, the backend system notifies maintenance personnel to promptly adjust or dispose of these items, thereby ensuring medication quality.

Furthermore, the interior of the self-service medication vending machine maintains a constant temperature storage environment between 3°C and 30°C, which can be adjusted according to the storage requirements of different medications to ensure appropriate preservation temperatures.

Self-service medication vending machines are available in two models, 1.2 meters and 2.4 meters in width, both with a height of 1.9 meters. According to Yang Yibin, most self-service medication vending machines currently on the market typically support around 60 SKUs, whereas Dingdang’s self-service medication vending machine, featuring an internal direct-track design, can accommodate up to 400 SKUs, fully meeting the needs of pharmacies.

Actual Photo of Dingdang Self-Service Medicine Vending Machine

The front of the self-service medication vending machine is equipped with a 43-inch display screen, enabling basic interactive functions. During idle periods, it serves as an effective showcase window, facilitating promotional marketing for pharmacies. Additionally, the machine acts as a pickup point for Dingdang Kuaiyao, making it more convenient for users to purchase medications.

Yang Yibin also revealed that the self-service medicine vending machines have already integrated medical insurance access, with full interoperability to be achieved in the future, and their services and functionalities will undergo continuous upgrades and iterations.

Going forward, Dingdang 24-Hour Self-Service Medication Vending Machines will be deployed across China in targeted settings such as residential communities, universities and colleges, airports, subway stations, bus terminals, hotels, and shopping malls and supermarkets, making medication purchases more convenient.

Across China, self-service medication vending machines are not a new concept. As early as 2002, Shanghai First Pharmaceutical deployed such machines in its 53 chain pharmacies. In the following years, however, these machines saw little growth. Nevertheless, last August, the Fujian Provincial Food and Drug Administration issued specific guidelines for self-service medication vending machines, reigniting market interest in this sector.

Self-service medication vending machines, deployed by retail pharmacies, effectively expand the service radius of these establishments. By enabling shared inventory and pharmacist resources, they enhance resource utilization and increase sales per unit area for individual stores. Furthermore, these vending machines serve as an excellent channel for brand visibility. Integrating membership management into the purchasing process presents a significant market opportunity.

By integrating online orders with self-service medication vending machines, Dingdang Kuaiyao has undoubtedly opened up new possibilities for the use cases of such machines, making its development model one to watch.

In fact, compared to the highlight of this launch event—the Smart Pharmacy 3.0 System—the aforementioned two “black technologies” were merely an appetizer.

Since early 2016, Dingdang Kuaiyao has been promoting the “smart upgrade” of retail pharmacies, introducing services such as online consultations, health check-ups, and rapid medication delivery. After a year of promotion, the smart pharmacy model of Dingdang Kuaiyao has largely taken shape, and the Smart Pharmacy 2.0 model was launched at the beginning of this year.

The services under the 2.0 model are more refined and clearly defined. Taking rapid consultation as an example, Dingdang Kuaiyao collaborates with internet healthcare platforms to equip pharmacies with remote diagnosis and treatment devices. Users can obtain quick consultations through these terminals and purchase medications directly using electronic prescriptions. Additionally, Dingdang Kuaiyao partners with Dingdang TCM to provide services such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) consultations, prescription fulfillment, and delivery of herbal decoction pieces, further enhancing the medical service capabilities of its smart pharmacies.

By the “3.0” stage, Dingdang Kuaiyao’s “Smart Platform” offers even more comprehensive features. According to Wang Licheng, CEO of Dingdang Kuaiyao, the company’s intelligence lies in the acquisition and utilization of health big data. Upon visiting a Dingdang Smart Pharmacy, users can easily access the Dingdang Dabai health check-up service through a facial recognition system, which monitors routine health indicators such as body temperature, blood pressure, blood lipids, and body fat. For mild symptoms, Dingdang Dabai also provides intelligent recommendations to help users select appropriate medications.

Dingdang Kuaiyao CEO Wang Licheng Introduces the Smart Pharmacy 3.0 System

Furthermore, Dingdang Dabai connects users with online physicians from the Wuzhen Internet Hospital, enabling remote consultations for common ailments and real-time conversations with renowned specialists. Following the consultation, the online physician issues an electronic prescription, allowing patients to complete their medication purchase within two minutes at self-service vending machines in smart pharmacies, thereby creating a closed-loop healthcare experience.

Dingdang Smart Pharmacy will also aggregate vast amounts of user big data collected from various business segments, including 28-minute home delivery of medications, Dingdang Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) services, intelligent health monitoring, smart wearable devices for general wellness, and pharmacist consultations. On one hand, this health big data will help users break through temporal and spatial constraints, enabling them to monitor their real-time health status via the cloud and customize personalized solutions based on their individual circumstances. On the other hand, it will facilitate the optimization and upgrading of Dingdang Kuaiyao’s new retail strategy, further expanding services across a broader range of smart health consumption scenarios.

So, what is the purpose of this intelligent upgrade? It is to significantly boost the sales per square meter for pharmacies. Wang Licheng stated, “Ultimately, everything we do must return to commercial value. The goal is very simple: to achieve a monthly sales per square meter of over 100,000 yuan in our pharmacies.”

“We are exploring ways to provide consumers with more usage scenarios, thereby achieving higher sales per square meter. A small-scale pilot will be launched by the end of September; upon its success, we will gradually expand nationwide to accelerate our competition for urban markets. Dingdang’s vision is to cover 2,800 districts and counties in the future, with four stores in each county, providing consumers with rapid medication delivery, chronic disease management, and intelligent health services.”

Dingdang Express Pharmacy benchmarks itself against CVS, the U.S. pharmaceutical retail giant. As a leading chain pharmacy operator in the United States, CVS possesses extensive sales data. Through precise big data analytics, its system dynamically adjusts product categories and inventory levels in response to evolving customer demand.

Furthermore, CVS retail stores frequently offer member-exclusive promotions, allowing customers to enjoy additional discounts on top of existing deals when purchasing products at CVS pharmacies. As a result, many customers are willing to travel farther to visit CVS pharmacies or wait for home delivery of their medications, thereby further strengthening customer loyalty.

Dingdang Kuaiyao aims to enrich the service scenarios of smart pharmacies through the application of various “cutting-edge technologies,” providing services to users of all ages and health conditions, thereby realizing new retail in the pharmaceutical industry.