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Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

bbc.co.uk

21–30 of 428 posts

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#21

So how will the people who would have worked in a shop like this, afford to shop for food? In Sweden this probably isn’t as big of an issue, but not every country is as socially conscious.

Broken window fallacy argument - we can’t artificially keep doing demonstrably less efficient things for the sake of jobs, it has never worked and never will. If it becomes a problem then we have to deal with it by finding new avenues to employ people or not need employment to live a life.

That’s assuming that efficiency is the only thing we should care about in society.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#22
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Many grocery stores nowadays have hand scanners in addition to a smartphone app (they often had the hand scanners before a good app), so that + a payment point = problem solved.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#23
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

I guess you've chosen to travel to a larger town and do your shopping there?

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#24
post #5

So how will the people who would have worked in a shop like this, afford to shop for food? In Sweden this probably isn’t as big of an issue, but not every country is as socially conscious.

Yea I see more problems with this than benefits. Sure it's nice to have during corona times but what about after it when it's not necessary anymore?

It’s not always about what is necessary because customer preferences can change, too. The automated ordering on machines in fast food restaurants or self-checkout in supermarkets may have been introcued to save businesses money and reinforced to limit interactions under COVID, but some people just prefer not to have that human interaction when it’s not absolutely required. As more people get used to and come to prefer managing things like that for themselves, the fact that it isn’t necessary will be overcome by the fact that people like it.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#26
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Many grocery stores nowadays have hand scanners in addition to a smartphone app (they often had the hand scanners before a good app), so that + a payment point = problem solved.

Ah i didn't know about that, thanks!

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#27
post #12

how does refilling these container shops work? who does it? staff riding along on the truck? or is the entire shop replaced?

From the article: "There are 24-hour surveillance cameras too, which alert the store's manager Domenica Gerlach if there's a break-in or a stock spillage. She looks after four stores in the region, usually visiting once a week to clean, stack the shelves and put together click-and-collect orders made online. Lifvs uses artificial intelligence to work out what stock to order for each store, based on the data it collec…

> Lifvs uses artificial intelligence to work out what stock to order for each store

The "AI" is an if test

  if stock 

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#28
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Then you've selected yourself out as not the target audience. There are plenty of shoppes that I don't patronize as I'm not the target audience. This is no different.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#29
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Thankfully the Swedes are not as luddites as the Germans and adopt more easily solutions that make their lives easier

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if these stores were cashless, in several Scandinavian countries shop attendants handling change manually are already on their way out

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#30
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

From a business point of view you obvisously don't need to be accessible to 100% of potential customers to be viable. People without smartphones are probably less Shops without access ramps lose probably more customers, and yet there are plenty of them.

I was looking more from a customers point of view but I get what you are saying.

Your point about the access ramps also makes alot of sense, didn't really think about that case.

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