VenHub Global CEO Shahan Ohanessian joins Remy Blaire at the New York Stock Exchange to break down how autonomous retail is reshaping shopping amid rising labor costs, growing shrinkage, and the push toward fully unmanned storefronts.
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Remy: Welcome back to Market Movers the Opening Bell. The retail sector is currently trapped between a rock and a hard place, surging labor costs on one side and an escalating shrink epidemic on the other. While many see automation as the silver bullet, the road to a truly unmanned storefront is littered with high CapEx and also unproven long term reliability. At the same time, robots are playing their part in factories, warehouses, health care facilities and delivery networks. So what does this mean for the industry and also the future of shopping? Joining me live here at the New York Stock Exchange is Shahan Ohanessian, who is board of directors member and CEO of VenHub Global. Welcome and thank you so much for joining us.
Shahan: Good morning. How are you?
Remy: Doing very well. So first let's talk about the CapEx math here because we're talking about hardware versus software. So how long does it take for an initial robotics investment to truly break even.
Shahan: So our business model is we sell the stores. And then we saw the software. It depends where the location is or the operator is. We've seen it somewhere. We have like some locations that you can recover your investment in less than 6 or 7 months. And some locations they use it for not as a business but as a convenience. So it all depends traffic wise. But the recovery is fast. And versus costs of a traditional labor or traditional retail is substantially lower.
Remy: Yeah. And while I have you here, I do want to ask you about labor, because when we think about the pandemic, there has been a considerable advance since the beginning of the pandemic when it comes to AI and robotics. So tell us a little bit more about your business model and what your vision is moving forward.
Shahan: So the vision is we want to make sure, we've been working for retail for hundreds of years, if not thousands of years. The vision is converted to retail working for us. So I used to work at Amazon for many, many years from the early days, and a lot of our teammates do so the challenges of the existing retail, the way it exists today between crime, shrinkage, exposing employees to harmful jobs, exposing consumers to a hostile environment. So we've changed that landscape. So we think that's where the future is. The man has been incredible. The reception has been incredible. And I think it's people have said like the AI might displace jobs. We're finding out that it's increasing jobs, increasing opportunities.
Remy: Yeah. And you mentioned a keyword there and that is shrinkage. So when it comes to the retail sector, that is a term we used to hear more often. Especially here in the U.S. So when it comes to security versus vandalism, what's actually happening here and what problem are you actually trying to solve?
Shahan: So the security is the main issue from both our perspective from the retailer operators aspect of it. It's they have to make sure that their spaces are secure. From the consumer side of it, they also have to make sure that they're walking into a safe environment to shop. We introduced a steel frame, bulletproof glass, completely enclosed space where consumers interact with the store via mobile app, and the operator doesn't have to be physically at the location. The robots, the AI, the system can go ahead and manage the stores for themselves. So we're bringing convenience and security for both sides of it. And we're seeing incredible, incredible reception from both operators and consumers.
Remy: Yeah. So I do want to ask you about the competitive advantage that you have. What would you say sets you apart from the others out there?
Shahan: Technically speaking, were the leaders in the fully autonomous retail. Amazon has the Amazon Go stores, but they're still attended, they're official stores. Yeah, we're the first ones to have introduced the unattended, fully autonomous retail stores. So the competition is - I can tell you that other companies today, in the largest landscape world, there are no other competition today. But I think our conversations with the huge brands that exist in here and the smaller operators, they're hungry for it because the pain points they're dealing with.
Remy: Well, it was great having you here. We will have to leave it there.
Shahan: Thank you so much for joining us. Shahan: Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.