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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

#221

Post by cambaceres »

tpmx wrote: post #202

The BankID service seems to trip up many people here. Swedish residents have a personal identity number issued at birth or immigration. Format: YYYYMMDD-NNNN. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed... BankID is a service run by the Swedish banks that interfaces with the banks, individuals and third parties (like this chain of unmanned stores). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID T…

> There is growing awareness that this service should not be run by private companies/banks.

I don't agree. I'm a Swede too (as I assume you are), and I have basically never heard anyone complain of BankID being owned by the banks. I am really happy that our government does not own BankID, since they suck badly at developing software.

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

#222

Post by okareaman »

qmmmur wrote: post #133
random_upvoter wrote: post #104

I worked in a supermarket for a while and there was plenty of old people who came to that shop almost daily just to interact with another human being.

What's your point? That people should be indentured in low paying jobs to be old people's friends?

You may want to brush up on the concept of 'service' before you start a business selling to the public

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

#223

Post by quirkybeats1 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #99
program_whiz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> why should we have to cater to people who aren't normal? Because (in the USA) the ADA exists, and has been shown to help even non disabled people. Elevators were mandated on multi floor buildings because of wheelchairs, but they have a benefit of also being available for non disabled people who have their hands full of groceries. Also, what is “normal” to you won’t be the same as someone else. Is a wheelchair bound…

I think you may have read a specific bit of that posters sentence and taken it as a direct attack and not the fact that you are 100% in agreement with them.

They are saying that with the way society is moving forward, if you do not own a smartphone you are not considered "normal". We have the ADA in the USA for this reason, so that all aspects of society are accessible.

There is nothing currently that prevents you being excluded if you do not have a smartphone and are therefore not considered "normal".

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

#224

Post by calvinmorrison »

leetcrew wrote: post #215
offtop5 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>wouldn't trust a computer to recommend a cheese to with a certain kind of crackers. What stores are you going to now where this is the case, every time I buy some food I need to know exactly what I want. I wouldn't expect some 19-year-old clerk to be a culinary expert either.

the cheese counter staff at whole foods are usually pretty knowledgeable (more so than me anyway). but even at a lower end store, the people that work there aren't idiots. they might not be able to tell you what cheese would go well with a california syrah, but they can probably recommend a good blend for homemade mac and cheese.

You'd be surprised how useful local butchers are at big chains. They really know their stuff and have been able to sort out cuts for me, even are happy to slice up some cheap big beef cuts into stir fry, they can make special orders of sausage, etc.

Same goes for the bakery, I stand by my local ACME bakery being the easiest and very tasty birthday cake around, even above mom and pop shops.

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

#225

Post by BlackVanilla »

random_upvoter wrote: post #104

I worked in a supermarket for a while and there was plenty of old people who came to that shop almost daily just to interact with another human being.

Very true, and young people too! I think these shops could reduce loneliness as customers may talk to each other. There's more chance of interaction with a shop than no shop. The concern is where technology is used in place of staffed-shops, but perhaps you would have to make small talk with the security guard instead.

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

#226

Post by NickNaraghi »

vages wrote: post #162

There will be a market for both automated and manned grocery stores in the future. Until we have developed artificial general intelligence, I wouldn't trust a computer to recommend a cheese to with a certain kind of crackers. In stores with a reasonably wide selection of goods, I usually have to ask for the location of at least one thing. Although locating stuff _could_ be solved by looking it up with an app, I would…

> Although locating stuff _could_ be solved by looking it up with an app

It's already being solved with an app [0]. I think people will want different ways to interface with the store depending on their use case.

[0] https://twitter.com/InfopopHQ/status/1357719866149490688?s=2...

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

#227

Post by leetcrew »

paganel wrote: post #107
chrisseaton wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not only that, it's the fact that the stores have externalised the checkout process to customers themselves. I could never understood why should I, as a client, do the work that someone else can do for me (and more reliably, of course)? It's win-win, I'm not stressed at doing something wrong, I can do something else while my products are checked out and that person doing the product checkout also has a job. But…

if you want someone to ring up and bag your groceries for you, go to a high-end grocery store. meanwhile, I'll be paying less and getting out the door faster than you anyway.

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

#228

Post by rjsw »

polack wrote: post #207
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My store will shop for you, and deliver to your car. So if you value the time, that's a solution here.

You still have to make an order for everything you need and then go to the store to collect it. So the only time you really save here is the difference between collecting stuff from the physical shelves and the online counterpart. Cant imagine that being more than a couple of minutes of saved time for me.

Some UK supermarkets have the same online user interface for delivery to your car and for delivery to your house.

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

#229

Post by smhg »

tpmx wrote: post #202

The BankID service seems to trip up many people here. Swedish residents have a personal identity number issued at birth or immigration. Format: YYYYMMDD-NNNN. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed... BankID is a service run by the Swedish banks that interfaces with the banks, individuals and third parties (like this chain of unmanned stores). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID T…

Same thing happened in Belgium in the last few years where it is called 'Itsme'. Including government openly promoting it in their messaging and services.

There is sadly little awareness of it being a private joint venture between banking and telecom.

I don't know if it is realistic to expect governments to come up/run this, but when they promote it, I think it should at least be open source.

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

#230

Post by mytailorisrich »

vages wrote: post #162

There will be a market for both automated and manned grocery stores in the future. Until we have developed artificial general intelligence, I wouldn't trust a computer to recommend a cheese to with a certain kind of crackers. In stores with a reasonably wide selection of goods, I usually have to ask for the location of at least one thing. Although locating stuff _could_ be solved by looking it up with an app, I would…

> Until we have developed artificial general intelligence, I wouldn't trust a computer to recommend a cheese to with a certain kind of crackers.

Supermarket employees, if you can find one around, have no clue about this and can indeed at most tell you the location of a type of item.

> In stores with a reasonably wide selection of goods, I usually have to ask for the location of at least one thing.

Which is easily doable through an app on your phone or touchscreen in store.

The reality is that as soon as the technology is there, and we seem to be very close, many supermarkets' staff will become redundant across the board.

Having real people providing real service will still be a thing, I think, but more of a luxury experience. To take a British example: There won't be many staff left at Tesco but there will still be at Harrod's.

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