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“Just walk out” technology by Amazon

justwalkout.com

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Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#731

Post by JohnFen »

Crazyontap wrote: post #314
mherdeg wrote: post #234

This is just an observation that doesn't contribute meaningfully to discussion, but ... Twenty years ago this web site would 100% have looked like an April Fool's joke. Don't know what to make of that. Maybe it's that although retail feels almost exactly the same as it always has, under the hood lots of parts have really been moving, and I just haven't noticed? The parallel observation is that when Gmail was announce…

Yeah with all the innovation it indeed seems like we are living in a fairy tale. 20 years ago it would be impossible to think that you can order stuff from an unknown location/seller using a piece of glass. And soon we'll have drones coming to our house with packages.

> 20 years ago it would be impossible to think that you can order stuff from an unknown location/seller using a piece of glass.

Except for the fact that you could actually do this 20 years ago.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#732

Post by JohnFen »

CurrentB wrote: post #611
gordon_freeman wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to criticize or undermine this initiative in any way but someone like me who frequently uses Safeway's self-checkout machines at my local grocery store, to me this just feels like overengineering. I never had any problems with self-checkout and am always able to quickly scan-and-pay within a couple of minutes when I visit the store once a week.

So if you close your eyes and visualize a grocery store experience where you put stuff directly into your tote bags or your backpack and walk right out, with 0 time spent on anything after you have everything you need, this doesn't seem like something completely beyond self-checkout to you? I've used plenty of self checkout lanes too and it's roughly the same satisfaction as going in a cashier lane. It's still X + Y…

> this doesn't seem like something completely beyond self-checkout to you?

No, not really. It's more convenient and faster, sure, but it's not an incredibly significant sort of thing. And the cost/benefit ratio of it (considering the privacy implications) is nowhere near favorable enough for this to seem attractive to me.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#733

Post by pnutjam »

jsolson wrote: post #664
dragonwriter wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they released this at Whole Foods, I'd guess they'd fire all the cashiers there Since Whole Foods sells alcohol, I doubt that. There are things that lots of governments won't let you have customers “just walk out” with.

I did my most recent liquor run at the nearby Amazon Grocery. They check ID entering the liquor section (and it is a human that checks), but otherwise it is bag it and just walk out.

Wonder what happens if there is a dispute between what you take and what they think you took?

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#734

Post by cprecioso »

CurrentB wrote: post #611
gordon_freeman wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to criticize or undermine this initiative in any way but someone like me who frequently uses Safeway's self-checkout machines at my local grocery store, to me this just feels like overengineering. I never had any problems with self-checkout and am always able to quickly scan-and-pay within a couple of minutes when I visit the store once a week.

So if you close your eyes and visualize a grocery store experience where you put stuff directly into your tote bags or your backpack and walk right out, with 0 time spent on anything after you have everything you need, this doesn't seem like something completely beyond self-checkout to you? I've used plenty of self checkout lanes too and it's roughly the same satisfaction as going in a cashier lane. It's still X + Y…

In the Netherlands, the two leading supermarket chains have handheld barcode scanners. You can walk around the store, scan whatever you put in your bag as you do it, and then the cashier just reads your scanner and charges you.

There are random spot checks of course, but I don't think this would work elsewhere, not with the high level of citizen trust that there is here. I'm sure they lose some money to people enticed by easier stealing, but the flow of people is so much faster that it's probably worth it many times over.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#735

Post by milesskorpen »

milesskorpen wrote: post #647
WalterBright wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and marrying that to what Amazon already knows about you. Amazon is always putting up ads for me based on my purchase history, but they're never what I wind up buying. I have no explanation for what is wrong with their algorithm.

Data is useful for a lot more than ads. Very helpful for identifying what’s hot and releasing your own version. Figuring out seasonal trends. Or getting competitive price information to match/beet. Walmart brags about their ability to presciently stock stores, which keeps turnover & capital efficiency high.

Following up on this: "Amazon promises not to use customer purchase data for anything other than emailing receipts, but that leaves all of the data entailed in actually making the system work." (via Stratechery). Changes the equation a bit.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#736

Post by noisy_boy »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #700
thunderrabbit wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what percentage of people will still have a job there?

Do we need to have people working soul-sucking, unnecessary jobs so they can bring food to the table?

Ideally no, but since Universal Basic Income isn't prevalent, yes.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#737

Post by rndstr »

ndelage wrote: post #352

The last few times I've gone to my local pharmacy (Rite Aid) I've watched a single cashier operate more than one checkout registers at a time. She did this because it took so long to process payment and print a receipt -- e.g. while she waited for my payment to go through (via credit card) she'd ring up the next customer on another register. She's trying to ring up the most customers per minute possible and using a s…

There are retailers in other countries and payment terminals that have implemented the self-checkout to be very close to "just walk out".

- no item weight confirmation - no steps in-between trying to sell me things - no annoying voice overs - decent UX (navigation) for the 99% case

Here is how I pay in those stores: - scan my item(s) placing them directly in my bag: taking ~1s per item - navigate through 3 screens by hammering the [Next] button that is in the same spot on all these screens: takes less than 1s - pay contactless with my creditcard: takes less than 1s

The US screwed up each of those 3 steps.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#738

Post by demosito666 »

tartoran wrote: post #695
asdff wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this technology deal with theft?

Theft doesn’t happen in an ideal world. They’ll discover the flaws at some point. Id say theft and hacking scheemes could make this unfeasible or a big pain in their rearend

It seems to me that this technology may actually deal with theft better than what's there now, because it can retroactively charge the thief once he's caught, and it has more eyes than any amount of human guards at a supermarket can possibly have.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#739

Post by paulmd »

athenot wrote: post #705
paulmd wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, ebay has much better buyer protections unless the item is Fulfilled By Amazon (which carries a cost premium). eBay prices also tend to be better. If you're going to buy cheap chinese crap anyway, just cut out the middleman. Finally, Amazon's marketplace is just not navigable. Their search is pathetically bad, and this is nothing new, it's been a common complaint for years. Some fairly massive amount of their tr…

Yes! Amazon's search has been driving me crazy but it went from bad (loose interpretation of what I typed with a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff) to worse (adding more sponsored results, i.e. even less what I want). Their recommendation engine for related prducts used to be nice but that's been replaced by sponsored products which lowers the quality. Now, the only way I use Amazon's search is when I have a SKU or par…

Yeah, I specifically find ebay search to be very powerful and useful as well. It accepts (keywordA, keywordB) as an "or" syntax, -badkeyword as "not" syntax, and filtering for most of their internal functionality (eg auction/buy-it-now format, item location, item price, etc).

The one that they're missing that I really wish they would include is "multi item BIN" formats. People will list a $1 item so that they're the first result that comes up, and then the item you're looking for is high priced. The prices are in fact so high that I go out of my way to try and exclude these items using "not" keywords, setting a minimum price, and filtering to US only, which collectively get most of them.

I have a lot of saved searches for "rare" items that only get listed infrequently, or for items that I'm waiting to come down in price.

The contrast between the way those two sites handle their search is stark.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#740

Post by plorntus »

boublepop wrote: post #246

Aaaand there’s the play. Amazon wasn’t trying to compete with other retails stores by leveraging their tech edge, they were positioning themselves to becoming the single provider of retail checkout solutions for the future. You either opt-in to giving Amazon all your retail data, or you become the only old fashioned “wait in line to get served” store on the street. And where is the competition? Is there anyone at all…

Their FAQ states they do not collect data right at the bottom of the page?
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