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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

#71

Post by aboringusername »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #36

I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders. This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

Machines are even better then that, they generate digital data which unlocks all sorts of possibilities. Amazon could not care less if they lost $1,000,000,0 in stock if they had the data to back that up (sensor data, images, video), which is worth that much to optimize their systems and become a 'leader' which can make money itself. It's why they want to sell data gathering devices so cheaply, cameras, smart assistants, prime, anything that gives them information they can use for AI is a money maker to them.

Even if a machine is terrible and useless, you can collect that useless information/data and use it as a data point for other machines that are perhaps not so terrible, any data point is useful afterall.

Machines are the future for that reason alone.

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

#73

Post by jjcon »

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.

I kinda see this as the next step after self checkout - conventional wisdom was that there would be too much theft and I think there is slightly more (intentional or accidental) but it is more than offset by the fact that you can pay just one employee and run 8 checkout lines

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

#74

Post by KptMarchewa »

jjoonathan wrote: post #39
ramraj07 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> we can’t artificially keep doing demonstrably less efficient things Well then it's a good thing adamcstephens didn't suggest that, is it not? > If it becomes a problem then we have to deal with it by finding new avenues That's the correct approach, but so far the strategy has been a combination of denial (which I hear an echo of in the word "if") and inaction. Protectionism is a dead end, but so are denial and inac…

>so far

Since alphabet's invention put ancient egyptian hieroglyph writers out of jobs, we as a society has put up with it just fine.

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

#75

Post by bryanrasmussen »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #36

I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders. This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

machines implement stupid broken ux patterns which make shopping hell.

on edit: evidently people would like their supermarket checkout experience to be as pleasing as the typical online shopping experience, thus a quick downvote.

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

#76

Post by scatters »

the-dude wrote: post #47
SamuelAdams wrote: post #36

I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders. This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

My favorite supermarket has regular and 'quick' checkouts. I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

Do the employees enjoy the interaction with you, I wonder?

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

#77

Post by m12k »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #52
m12k wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency is the reason we can have this conversation instead of standing out in a field, manually trying to coax a living out of the unforgiving soil every day. Efficiency isn't the goal, but it's one of the best tools we have for improving what a human life can be - like for example giving us enough leisure time to be able to read, have hobbies, do art or spend more time with loved ones.

There's nothing wrong with efficiency and it provides a lot of benefits, as you say. But the efficiency argument is also used to knock out local businesses in favor of big box stores and so on. Everybody likes efficiency but we should be wary of using that as the only way to measure outcomes.

I agree that a singular focus on efficiency without regard for unintended side effects or negative externalities is crazy too. "Sustainability" should be right up there with efficiency as a main tool - doing something efficiently in an unsustainable way (societally, economically or ecologically) will by definition not be efficient in the long term anyway - but our society is often organized in a way where those who benefit from short term profits are not the same as those who must bear the long term costs, so they don't balance out like ideally they should. So the effort should be put into aligning those incentives, make it unprofitable to chase short-term profits in ways that harm society - not to fight efficiency as a concept.

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

#78

Post by dominotw »

scatters wrote: post #76
the-dude wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite supermarket has regular and 'quick' checkouts. I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

Do the employees enjoy the interaction with you, I wonder?

I enjoyed interacting with customers when i worked as a cashier. But i was also a young person with lots of energy.

they seem (or pretend) in: costco, whole foods, trader joes

not so much in: walmart, target

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

mrweasel wrote: post #63

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 pre…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by chrisseaton »

the-dude wrote: post #47
SamuelAdams wrote: post #36

I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders. This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

My favorite supermarket has regular and 'quick' checkouts. I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

> I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

If you want to pay for someone to be social with you why not do that separately to shopping? Seems funny to try to mix the two.

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