Sea change in the arcade business: large chains dangle snacks and everyday items
Sea change in the arcade business: large chains dangle snacks and everyday items
2023-03-20
There’s a sea change underway in the arcade business. Traditionally, Taiwanese arcades were individual businesses. Sometimes a single claw machine was the whole venture. Now, much larger chains of giant arcades are gaining ground. They don’t necessarily lure consumers in with toys. Instead, they dangle snacks and everyday items. We spoke to a business expert to find out more about the trend. He says it’s an import from Japan, where arcades full of everyday items have become big business.
A visitor changes a bill for a handful of coins, and prepares to attack the claw machine. But this arcade is not touting plushies or plastic toys.
These baskets full of winnings overflow with candy, crackers, and drinks.
Just push in a coin to give it a try. Consumers keep coming back for more! Drinks and Ferrero Rocher are the simplest prizes to win. This “one-star” difficulty level is achievable even for kids, claims the arcade.
But more stars means more difficulty. This well-practiced expert is going for a five-star household item.
Lee Shih-chen
Business administration and finance expert
When there’s a tiny element of gambling, I want to keep refining my skill or challenging myself, and I give it another try. Can I get the one-star? The two-star? The three-star? It goes up and up. Psychologically, we enjoy it and we want to challenge ourselves, and we’re not bothered about whether we got the prize or not, or how many prizes we got.
The arcade employs more than a dozen part-time workers. They constantly rotate the locations and numbers of the prizes in this arcade of almost 100 ping. There are more than 80 machines here, and 90% contain snacks. There’s a parking lot in the basement, so no need to fear how consumers will cart away their mountains of winnings. The chain arcade has almost 10 locations nationwide, and at weekends, they’re full to bursting.
Lee Shih-chen
Business administration and finance expert
An arcade used to be able to operate as a single location, or a single machine. But now I want more, and in that case I need lots of stock. If I have lots of stock, I can push down the costs. Eighty percent of consumers are just coming to have fun. Twenty percent are more about the skills. You balance them, and then expand the locations, and then more people will come in. Then of course economies of scale start to appear.
In the old days, a claw machine with toys inside was enough of an excitement. Now that the scale has ramped up, consumers can be kept entertained for longer by a wide choice of machines, as this large-scale arcade format becomes the norm.
不是夾娃娃! 零食娃娃機夯 餅乾.飲料樣樣有
2023-03-20
夾娃娃機店大轉型！從過去單一機台、店面，轉變成大型連鎖店；機台內的商品也從過往的模型、精品變成"零嘴"。專家分析，國內這波風潮是跟上"日本抓物店"的模式，賣零嘴客群廣，只要連鎖經營就能以量制價；也難怪近期零食娃娃機大行其道。
拿鈔票換大把零錢，準備在夾娃娃機店大開殺戒，但這間店主打的不是公仔。
民眾一人拉一個籃子，裡頭裝滿糖果、餅乾、飲料。
投一個銅板就搞定，成就感爆棚，飲料、金莎巧克力最簡單，難度一顆星，宣稱連小孩都能出貨。
星星越多，代表難度越高，技術高超的行家專攻五顆星日用品。
[[商管財經專家 李世珍]]
“有一點點博弈味道，我想要再精進一點或再挑戰一下，再賭一下，我是不是能夠挑戰一星、二星、三星不斷上去，這種就是樂趣跟想挑戰的心理，就不會去在乎有夾到或沒夾到，或夾到多少”
一間店十幾名工讀生，隨時調整商品數量、喬位置，商場占地近百坪，80多台機器九成都裝零食，地下室有停車場，夾再多也不怕帶不走，全台近10間店連鎖化經營，周末人潮滿滿滿。
[[商管財經專家 李世珍]]
“一家店過去單一店，單一機台就可以做生意，但現在我就是要多，多的時候我就要進貨多，進貨多我就可以把成本壓低。80%的人是一種樂趣走法，20%的人就是技術性，這樣去做一個平衡，再把門店廣度擴大，之後更多人加入，當然規模經濟就出來了”
"夾娃娃機店"轉型"最大零食場"，不僅客群更廣，規模化經營也能拉長新鮮度，成為市場新趨勢。
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