"Previously, new product launches were all based on gut feelings. Now the system understands local tastes better than veteran buyers." At a Youyoucao E-Yu community fresh food store in Wanzhou, Chongqing, store manager Li Min pointed to the data streams dancing on the back-office screen and demonstrated the AI business system that the company has just fully rolled out. This regional retail brand, deeply rooted in the E-Yu (Hubei and Chongqing) area for years, is attempting to use artificial intelligence to reshape every link from the field to the shelf.
The transformation of Youyoucao E-Yu was not a rash decision. Over the past three years, its management found that although the number of stores expanded from 47 to over 120, the per-store sales per square foot growth had stagnated. More challenging was the region's complex terrain and vastly different consumption habits — downtown Chongqing favors spicy instant foods, while the mountainous areas of Enshi in Hubei have a strong preference for cured and dried goods. Traditional manual product selection and allocation models often required regional managers to spend weeks conducting research, with persistently high error rates.
"We weren't aiming for a lab-bound AI, but rather a 'digital buyer' that can understand Chongqing dialect and navigate the mountain roads of western Hubei," admitted Zhang Tao, Chief Operating Officer of Youyoucao E-Yu, during an interview at the company's Wanzhou headquarters. The 'digital buyer' he referred to is the 'AI Product Selection and Dynamic Pricing Engine' co-developed with a local tech firm.
The core logic of this system is to push the application of AI in operations from 'assisting decision-making' to 'autonomous operation'. The system integrates sales data from the past three years, real-time weather, competitor pricing, and trending topics on local food from social media. For example, if the system detects three consecutive rainy days in Wanzhou, Chongqing, coupled with a surge in views of 'grilled fish' topics on Douyin, it will automatically push a bundled promotion plan for 'grass carp + spicy seasoning pack' to stores in that area, while also shortening the inventory turnover warning from 72 hours to 12 hours.
At the supply chain center of Youyoucao E-Yu, reporters witnessed the AI system even intervening in direct agricultural product sourcing. Using image recognition technology, the system can perform second-level grading of each batch of arrived Fengjie navel oranges based on sugar content, fruit diameter, and appearance defects, and automatically match pricing strategies for different stores — slightly blemished fruits are sent directly to the 'community special offer' channel, while premium fruits are allocated to high-end community stores. This change has slashed the fresh food loss rate from the industry average of 25% down to 12.6%.
However, the implementation of technology has not been without its challenges. Zhang Tao recalled that in the early days of the system's launch, a veteran buyer with twenty years of experience slammed the table in opposition: "Can a computer tell if pork is from a free-range pig or a grain-fed pig?" But three months later, by analyzing muscle texture and fat distribution, the AI improved the accuracy of pork grading to 98.7%, far exceeding manual methods. Now, that veteran buyer has voluntarily applied to join the operations department to learn how to adjust the AI model's parameters.
At a Youyoucao E-Yu store in Yichang, Hubei, reporters also witnessed the application of AI in customer experience. Cameras on smart shelves can identify the frequency with which customers pick up and put down items. If a certain product, like 'Enshi small potatoes', is repeatedly picked up and set down, the system will classify it as 'price-sensitive' and immediately push a limited-time discount coupon to that customer's membership account. This millisecond-level interaction boosted the store's member repurchase rate by 19% within a single month.
Industry observers point out that Youyoucao E-Yu's practice represents a typical path for 'down-to-earth AI': it doesn't chase after flashy large models, but instead delves deep into the capillaries of regional markets to solve the most specific pain points. While new retail giants in first-tier cities are still debating whether AI should replace humans, this E-Yu enterprise has already taught AI how to judge 'which bunch of water spinach looks more like the variety locals prefer to eat'.
"The ultimate goal of applying AI in business is to make the name 'Youyoucao' resonate in every town and village across E-Yu," Zhang Tao said at the end of the interview. According to reports, the company plans to extend the AI system to cover inventory forecasting, employee scheduling, and community group-buy product selection across all its stores by the end of 2025.