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Amazon Go

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Re: Amazon Go

#301
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's surprising to hear. I love them (at normal grocers, not Sam's Club) because I find I am faster at scanning and checking myself out than at least half of the cashiers I encounter.

Almost all cashiers in my country are under orders to scan things slowly enough that the customer doesn't feel rushed to put them away. There are discount stores (Aldi and Lidl) that don't do this, and the cashiers there scan things much faster.

I wish more stores employed bag boys/girls. They speed the process up so much. It's a good first job for teenagers and the mentally disabled.

Re: Amazon Go

#302
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding getting charged is an incentive to put it back in the right place that doesn't exist currently. Maybe not even where you picked up just a discard area

Honestly, that's an "incentive" that should be illegal. You should only get charged for something if you actually take it home or use it. Anything else is a cop out to push the costs of a deficient system onto the user/customer.

Why? If it's understood that the way the system works is that it's in your 'virtual cart' as soon as you take it off the shelf, why isn't it the customer's job to put it back if they don't want it anymore? There are other checkoutless systems that use the customer scanning a barcode as they pick up each item; same deal there.

Re: Amazon Go

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you are Amazon, you have to acknowledge that you are slowly corroding the retail sector, which employs many (~4.5 million) people in this country." http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-ha...

In 1800's - "If you are a farm equipment manufacturer, you have to acknowledge that you are slowly corroding the farming sector, which employs most people in the country." Even if they "acknowledge" it, so what? It's not their job to create extra jobs to replace the ones that they've automated out of existence. It's never been the jobs of the companies creating disruptive technology, like farm equipment or cars or co…

and income inequality has skyrocketed since then.

Re: Amazon Go

#305

Thank you for this idea. I will be doing this every time I set foot in a wal-mart from this day forward. "Two pounds of ham, please. Can you slice it really thin? I have a date with the household appliance section of the store"

How about just not shopping at Wal-Mart? I stopped shopping there in 2009. When I returned to the US, I stopped shopping at Amazon because it had pretty much become the new Wal-Mart; maybe worse even.

This is cool tech and I'd want to try it, but I hate shopping anything Amazon. They had sd cards at their brick and mortar store, but I decided to buy one at Office Depot instead, even though it was $10 more.

Re: Amazon Go

#306
What happens if someone sneaks into the store without an amazon account and walks right the hell out with whatever they want? Not a criticism, just curious what we speculate the theft prevention systems used here might be.

Re: Amazon Go

#307
post #291

So what happens when someone asks a good samaritan to help them get some expensive item off of a high shelf? How does this deal with things like a couple shopping together, one with an Amazon account and one without where both of them are getting items off of the shelves? Even if all of the video was monitored by a human I can still envision several pitfalls to this where it's hard to know who to bill for what withou…

People shopping with children would also be a big issue, it seems. Somehow it seems they will need to deal with the multiple-shopper case (no idea how to solve the "Have someone else get the item off the shelf for you" case).

Re: Amazon Go

#308

Thank you for this idea. I will be doing this every time I set foot in a wal-mart from this day forward. "Two pounds of ham, please. Can you slice it really thin? I have a date with the household appliance section of the store"

Because increasing food waste is a great way to express your displeasure at Wal-Mart?

Making Wal-mart a party to food waste is a great way to harm the corporation. Any animal rights activist will agree that a cow or pig dying for schadenfreude is only marginally worse than a cow or pig dying to feed someone.

Re: Amazon Go

#309
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry but if you cost the store $25 by leaving a damned ROAST in the cereal aisle, I would be perfectly happy to never let you in the store again. Wouldn't a better solution be to charge the customer for the roast and if they complain, you explain: "sorry, you didn't put it on the proper shelf, the technology considers that as a purchase", and possibly eat the cost in the form of some incentive to come back to…

IMO, any messaging in the format "sorry, $thingYouDid, the technology considers that as $notWhatYouDid" is a recipe for customer loss.

I agree with your point, but at the same time, you should be charged the price of the food if you grab perishable food and place it in an area that renders it unsafe. I worked in retail and at theme parks, and I'm personally of the opinion that it's better for everyone in the long run if you fire entitled customers.

Re: Amazon Go

#310

I know this is fairly impossible in urban areas but I find myself shopping much more frequently in what I call grocery farms. If you live in affluent suburbias I'm sure you have seen them. They are basically high end grocery stores that sells the produce they grow along with other things they buy from other local farms. Some of the produce is grown inside and seasonal things are grown outside. Yeah some of them are j…

> (even if it requires some GMO)

You say that like if it's a bad thing, you might want to better inform yourself on GMOs as there are A LOT of myths and misconceptions out there.

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