ABB Robots and the Robot-Run Convenience Store

From counter clerks and automats to Galbot's robot-run Hong Kong store: how ABB's YuMi, GoFa and Wizard app fit a robot shopkeeper's pick-and-hand-over job.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/24/20261 min read

In a 1930s general store you didn't take things off the shelf yourself. You told the clerk what you wanted, and they fetched it from behind the counter, wrapped it and took your money. Self-service aisles only spread after Piggly Wiggly opened its first one in 1916.

Black and white photo of a general store interior with shelves, canned goods and notices on the wall
Black and white photo of a general store interior with shelves, canned goods and notices on the wall

Inside a general store in 1938, where clerks fetched goods from the shelves. Photo: Russell Lee, FSA / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Machines took over the simplest part early. Horn & Hardart automats in New York sold food from coin-operated glass windows, and Japan later filled its streets with vending machines. Someone still had to walk the route every day and restock them by hand.

Black and white photo of a wall of small glass food compartments in a New York automat
Black and white photo of a wall of small glass food compartments in a New York automat

A Horn & Hardart automat in New York. Photo: Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

On September 5, Hong Kong's RTHK reported crowds at the city's first robot-run convenience store, opened by Beijing's Galbot. A 173 cm humanoid named Xiaogai takes the order in Cantonese, Mandarin or English, turns to fetch the item and hands it over. Galbot says about 200 of these stores already run on the mainland.

Man in a blue uniform loading cans into an open vending machine
Man in a blue uniform loading cans into an open vending machine

A worker restocking a drinks vending machine by hand in Japan. Photo: Leonardo Boiko / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

The motion at the center of this, picking one item from a shelf and passing it to a person, is ordinary work for ABB robots. The dual-arm YuMi was designed to handle small objects next to people, which is roughly what a kiosk robot does all day.

ABB YuMi dual-arm robot handling small parts on a bench beside a technician
ABB YuMi dual-arm robot handling small parts on a bench beside a technician

ABB's dual-arm YuMi, built to handle small objects next to people. Photo: ABB

ABB's GoFa cobot senses contact in its joints and can be guided by hand, useful when a robot has to pass something into a customer's hand. The Wizard app on the FlexPendant lets staff without programming skills change a pick routine, the kind of edit a shop would need whenever its stock changes.

Woman guiding an ABB GoFa cobot arm by hand at a workbench
Woman guiding an ABB GoFa cobot arm by hand at a workbench

An ABB GoFa cobot being guided by hand. Photo: ABB

I think the harder job is restocking. Galbot's robot serves customers, but a person probably still fills its shelves at night. I'd call a store where arms also unload the delivery and restock the shelves the real milestone, and the same skills could one day let a home robot fetch a drink from the fridge.

ABB FlexPendant tablet showing the Wizard app next to a single-arm YuMi robot
ABB FlexPendant tablet showing the Wizard app next to a single-arm YuMi robot

Changing a pick routine with ABB's Wizard app on the FlexPendant. Photo: ABB

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