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Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

bbc.co.uk

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

#61

Post by program_whiz »

aboringusername wrote: post #35
alexf95 wrote: 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're excluded, simple as that. We're rapidly approching the point where you're: a) Expected to have, engage with and be active on a smartphone b) Be accessible via the mobile network (have an active phone number that can get SMS) c) Be "always online", frequently checking the bank in 'real time' to verify transactions, account balance etc d) Have battery life on your device. It's no good if you have just 5% an…

Just want to point out that the same people who say "sorry if you don't have a phone you can't shop" are probably the same who claim requiring ID to vote is "voter disenfranchisement" and that disabled people should have special exceptions made for them.

The claim "sorry you don't have a smart phone you can't buy food / clothes" has implications for people (children, the elderly, the disabled, the poor). Just replace "smartphone" with "stairs" (if you can't climb stairs sorry no food / clothes for you). Hey if its a problem, just order online, or get a friend to do it, why should we have to cater to people who aren't normal?

Combine that with a culture where your phone can be disabled for many reasons (failure to pay, socially unacceptable views, employer owned) and you're creating a rather distopian picture.

I'm all for a more streamlined version for people who are able, and that may well be the vast majority, but it makes sense to make provisions for those who aren't and not to say "sorry history has moved forward, if you don't have a car you can't have a job or go shopping." (as another example)

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

#62

Post by adamcstephens »

ceejayoz wrote: post #9
adamcstephens wrote: post #3

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.

The answer seems to be that these stores wouldn't have existed in the first place. For now, at least, they're not taking jobs away. > The store is part of the Lifvs chain, a Stockholm-based start-up that launched in 2018 with the goal of returning stores to remote rural locations where shops had closed down because they'd struggled to stay profitable.

Except these aren’t the only stores like this, and they aren’t and won’t stay in only remote locations. Automation and self service will continue to grow, and collectively we need to figure out how to care for our fellow humans that will lose out due to the evolution.

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

#63

Post by mrweasel »

I believe Sweden has pretty good policing, and the Swedes are just about as honest as you could ever expect a nation to be, but if this was in "rural" Denmark and someone decided to raid the store, there would be very little stopping them. Police is in many cases at least 30 minutes away, if not more, and have no resources to investigate the theft of 10L of milk.

In many cases the staff is a store is just as much present to scare of any one wanting to steal. Even if we've seen gangs just walk out with massive amounts of goods, and the staff understandably choosing to not confront them.

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

#64

Post by dagw »

zurn wrote: post #41
sailingparrot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Smartphone penetration seems to be 40-80% in industrialized countries, according to 2019 figures from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_smartphon...

In the Nordic countries it's over 90%

https://www2.deloitte.com/se/sv/pages/technology-media-and-t...

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

#65

Post by sct202 »

m12k wrote: post #49
aloisdg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use statistics to determine what can of stock you should favor (e.g. winter clothes vs summer clothes) and the quantity (more Christmas food in December less after). If you have enough data from previous years or a good heuristics, you can start this one easily. Even a plain old markov chains could help.

I'm stunned that week after week, I'll come across the same shelf, with one variant of a thing sold out by midweek, and the unpopular variant next to it virtually untouched, as always. The amount of statistics or programming required to prevent this, and balance the stock to what the market shows that it wants, is fairly trivial, and yet my local supermarket has failed to do so for several decades now.

The on hand inventory is most likely wrong in the system, so it probably thinks there are phantom units available. This happens a lot with products that could have been lost, stolen or expired and the system was not updated.

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

#66

Post by [deleted] »

konschubert wrote: post #46

So this is basically run on a trust basis, right? And if you steal, you will eventually get caught on video and be blocked from entering the store? I can imagine this working well in small villages. You'll get a few thieves and vandals, but eventually you can weed them out. Pretty genius.

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by bellyfullofbac »

el-salvador wrote: post #56
cr3ative wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many shops have a barrier/qualification to entry; membership at Costco for example. Smartphones are now cheap as dirt. The bigger problem would be having a bank account.

A Swedish bank account with Swedish Bank ID. Do they have a work around for non Swedish users?

I'm reminded of a redditor commenting how he visited a music festival in Sweden as a foreigner, and how annoying it was for him, because all the food stands were expecting the Swedish payment system. And he couldn't even ask other visitors to buy stuff for him and take his cash, because the Swedes were very cash-averse.

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

#68

Post by dhimes »

konschubert wrote: post #46

So this is basically run on a trust basis, right? And if you steal, you will eventually get caught on video and be blocked from entering the store? I can imagine this working well in small villages. You'll get a few thieves and vandals, but eventually you can weed them out. Pretty genius.

My grocery store has a self-scan and checkout that works on trust basis with random audits. Some stores had to get rid of it because of stealing, but thankfully mine has kept it. I find it very fast and don't mind the occasional audits at all. Small price to pay, and still faster than if I had stayed in line.

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

#69

Post by adamcstephens »

colechristensen wrote: post #33
adamcstephens wrote: post #3

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.

The whole history of human civilization is one kind of labor replacing another, with no shortage of people wondering about how the new being a destructive force doesn’t make it a social evil. The people who would have worked at this kind of shop will find other jobs created or otherwise enabled by the lowered costs of automation.

The whole of the industrial and now computer revolution has been the degradation of human existence in the name of profit and progress. Elimination of employment that is a requirement for sustenance and a non-miserable life is common.

Automation doesn’t create jobs, it shifts them, generally towards less well paid options. Sure there are a few engineers who make more money, but what about the non skilled laborers?

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

#70

Post by olodus »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #57
konschubert wrote: post #46

So this is basically run on a trust basis, right? And if you steal, you will eventually get caught on video and be blocked from entering the store? I can imagine this working well in small villages. You'll get a few thieves and vandals, but eventually you can weed them out. Pretty genius.

And you have to scan your bank card (which apparently in Sweden is a secondary ID card) to enter. I wonder if they do an extra verification to make sure you just didn't steal someone's card, maybe with a PIN? Hah, I guess for the vandals, being blacklisted by the network would be a big hassle...

I haven't used the stores themselves but they reference using BankId which is an national identification app on your phone you link to your bank account that also requires a pin code.
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