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Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

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Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#71

Post by Dayshine »

ralfd wrote: post #69
ProblemFactory wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a shop I visit often, the receipt checking is random, triggered by some prediction algorithm based on your history and current cart contents when you swipe your membership card when you exit the store. You get selected once out of perhaps 20 to 50 visits. As a bonus, you get a small candy bar or similar "sorry we bothered you" gift if the check does not find any errors.

And if there is an error?

In the UK with Tesco's:

You have to scan every item in your shopping. There is no immediate penalty, but who knows what the system does in the background. I guess you could get banned from the system.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#72

Post by Dayshine »

doodyhead wrote: post #65
rileymat2 wrote: post #27

It is not the same, but our local Sam's Club has an app that you can scan all items as you go, and pay inside the app. Then as you leave an employee checks the receipt like they do for everyone else anyway. It works great.

I wonder if a "Trusted Traveller"-style program would work. You go through a small vetting process, and you build a solid history with receipt checking through their app, and then you're assumed trusted, maybe with more occasional checking, and higher trust levels?

That's how Tesco's do it in the UK. No vetting other than getting a loyalty card of some kind.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#73

Post by matteuan »

rileymat2 wrote: post #27

It is not the same, but our local Sam's Club has an app that you can scan all items as you go, and pay inside the app. Then as you leave an employee checks the receipt like they do for everyone else anyway. It works great.

In a shop in Italy if you are a member you can take at the entrance a scanner with you and then just pay in the automatic checkouts. Periodically (there is a statistical model behind I guess) you can be asked to be checked if the stuff you scanned are the same you have. So if you do mistakes, you will be checked more often. It seems to work pretty well, even with the old ladies.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#75

Post by tyingq »

huntersbellend wrote: post #46
tyingq wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon will counter by convincing third parties to resell their goods on the shelf. Amazon takes their cut of sales, but doesn't chip in on losses or fraud. Oh wait...

Does Amazon already do this?

It's a nod to their online model. You sell android phones as a 3rd party on Amazon.com. Buyer claims "not as described". Keeps phone, puts potato in Android box and returns it. Amazon forces you to refund. Probably distressing to Amazon that they can't foist off losses of physical in-store shoplifting onto 3rd parties.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#76

Post by zwily »

dangrossman wrote: post #54
rileymat2 wrote: post #27

It is not the same, but our local Sam's Club has an app that you can scan all items as you go, and pay inside the app. Then as you leave an employee checks the receipt like they do for everyone else anyway. It works great.

I've seen that at Sam's Club, and at a couple grocery store chains, but nobody seems to use them at the grocery store. I did once. I wish Costco would do this too. The lines at my Costco are huge no matter what day or time I visit. Sometimes I'd like to go in just for one or two things, but I decide to get it somewhere else at a higher price just to avoid standing in line behind a dozen full carts. Self-scan would fi…

I'm guessing since they just got rid of self checkout they're not gonna be doing that.

(I heard they got rid of it because of too many people sharing cards, and no cashier to check the picture. Seems like an easy thing to fix, but oh well.)

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#77

Post by tyingq »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #48
beambot wrote: post #26

All it takes is a loss factor of a few percent, and the entire model breaks down. This is the same reason that long-range RFID (UHF RFID) never worked for cashierless checkout too. You couldn't ensure 100% coverage. Some tags just couldn't be read -- either due to adversarial tactics (eg. shielding with your body) or material properties (eg. metal) -- and the engineering countermeasures to overcome these challenges m…

I have seen supermarket chains do away with automated checkout (Jewel which parent company is Albertsons) systems because they increased loss factors.

Oh. I assumed Albertson's dropped these because they were slow and inefficient, not because of loss/shoplifting. The stories I can find about it suggest the same.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#78

Post by deanCommie »

SerLava wrote: post #5
dawnerd wrote: post #4

In a nutshell: Their tech can't track items if there's a lot of people or fast movement.

And once they hear Amazon can't track a lot of people moving quickly... A lot of people will decide to start moving quickly.

You know you can already get things for free at current stores.

It's called shoplifting and it's REALLY EASY.

The truth is in Western Society most people don't do this.

And after an initial novelty factor (which I'm sure Amazon will account for), people won't bother any more than they shoplift now.

P.S. Nor will they shoot Amazon Prime AIr drones out of the sky like other HN threads fret.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#79

Post by brightball »

djhworld wrote: post #63
rileymat2 wrote: post #27

It is not the same, but our local Sam's Club has an app that you can scan all items as you go, and pay inside the app. Then as you leave an employee checks the receipt like they do for everyone else anyway. It works great.

How is that any better though? The receipt checking probably takes just as long as scanning the items through the till. Unless they just take a cursory glance and just say "well whatever you're probably trustworthy"

Mainly because Sam's already had receipt checking at the exit, so it's nothing outside of their normal operating process.

Re: Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks

#80

Post by dx034 »

cobookman wrote: post #56
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RFID is expensive. Even buying the cheapest transponders in bulk, you're still looking at $0.01-$0.05 per label - that's enough to kill the concept entirely for high-volume, low-value goods such as supermarket/grocery store goods where the profit-margins are thin enough as it is, if not loss-making.

How much per item do you pay for cashier staff though. Might be the same as the tag cost. Also in regards to RAIN RFID tags vs dumb print tags yep you are talking about a 5 cent increase. But you also lift inventory accuracy from ~70% to 99.9%.

You can just replace them with self-checkout. You still need some cashiers (as you would with RFID) and don't have the cost of extra tags.
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