Flagship Convenience Store Chain Halts Robot Retail Project After Lab Success Fails in Real-World Deployment

In March 2025, Hongqi Chain, a leading convenience store operator in southwestern China, announced a collaboration to develop an autonomous robot vending system. However, after 16 months of development, the project was terminated in July 2026 because robots struggled with real-world challenges such as unstable grasping of glass bottles, visual recognition errors under varying lighting, and navigation in narrow aisles despite extensive laboratory testing. The company shifted focus to scaled 24-hour cloud monitoring operations instead.