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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

#251

Post by NicoJuicy »

smhg wrote: post #229
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.

I don't think it should be open source.

But it's very expensive to integrate it and it's Ogone all over again ( most expensive option = the Belgian one) ~3€ / user/year for the most complete option for ( what is basically) a login verification.

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

#252

Post by ahepp »

chrisseaton wrote: post #175
paganel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> freeing them to do something else instead. Yes, the'll be busy looking for other jobs.

I think it's demeaning to employ people to do something that is so clearly not necessary. If we want to create and possibly subsidise jobs for people let's create useful, productive jobs.

Like what, "door dasher"? "uber driver"?

The economy is developing in the wrong direction. We are not on track for happy automation.

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

#253

Post by watwut »

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?

Pretty often, they do enjoy people who act like the whole thing was pleasant. If you force them into long chat they will dislike it, but if you smile, are nice to them, thank and say one socially appropriate thing, they tend to like it.

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

#254

Post by tzs »

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.

I'm enjoying the speed of checkout at Walmart with Walmart+. With a little bit of care, checkout takes almost no time. The little bit of care is going at a time when it is not so crowded that there is a line to get to a self-checkout station.

The way it works is that you scan the bar codes with the Walmart app on your smartphone as you add items to your shopping cart. The scan function is very fast. If you are adding more than one of an item, you can either scan them separately or scan once and then set the quantity.

To checkout, you just go to an open self-checkout station, hit the "check out" button in the app, scan the QR code that is on the home screen of the terminal, tell it how many bags you are using (default is zero), hit "pay", and about two seconds later a confirmation appears in the app, and you can leave.

The confirmation can be shown to the person at the exit to show that you have paid, although usually they don't ask.

If you are buying anything sold be weight, it tells you when you add it to your cart that you'll have to weigh it at checkout. At checkout, it prompts you to put each such item on the scale, weighs it, and adds it in.

It is literally 10-15 seconds from the time I enter the self-checkout area to the time I'm pushing my cart toward the exit. (I don't bag in-store. I have my reusable bags and some boxes in my car trunk, and do my bagging and/or boxing at my car).

This has been great for pandemic shopping. It is fairly easy to avoid spending more than a few passing seconds around any given other shopper while going around gathering items, but when scanning and bagging a full cart of groceries at self-checkout, you might be around the same other shoppers for several minutes, some within 2 meters.

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

#255

Post by Zitrax »

BlackVanilla wrote: post #225
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.

I don't think there is even a security guard there.

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

#256

Post by t_von_doom »

aivisol wrote: post #180
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the quick self service checkouts and will line up for them even when a regular staffed checkout is free. I’m just the opposite and instead dislike interaction I guess.

Whenever I use self service checkout, it always takes much longer time for me to get through. I guess I am not so good at quickly juggling and locating bar codes at each item as the staff working at checkout are. So I leave it to professionals.

Here in the UK some stores offer a handheld wireless scanner at the entrance to the store (and some chains offer an app so you can use your phone too)

You then scan items as you pick them off the shelf - if you're really prepared you put the item directly into a bag you brought with you.

Payment is then a case of walking up to the till - human or machine - and scanning one final barcode. Your order is presented to you for a final review then you tap your card and leave.

Arriving at the till and paying instantly means my entire queuing experience is over within 5-10 seconds

(Unless you get subjected to an infrequent random poll of your items but these are worth the occasional hassle)

Hopefully you get something similar implemented!

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

#257

Post by random_upvoter »

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?

Don't underestimate the satisfaction of a job where you don't have to prostitute your brain and where you can send a smile to people a couple of times a day.

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

#258

Post by sethammons »

kqr wrote: post #148
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the quick self service checkouts and will line up for them even when a regular staffed checkout is free. I’m just the opposite and instead dislike interaction I guess.

One implicit benefit of the self-service checkouts is that there's often one line for multiple machines. Any student of queuing theory will know how much this reduces waiting time compared to the one queue per cashier that's otherwise common.

This one gets me every time. I’ve only ever seen a couple super markets or stores implement this for human-operated check out stations. Ross has this, and Best Buy used to during the holidays.

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

#259

Post by throwaway4good »

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…

The Danish parallel to BankId - NemID / MitID is also partly owned by the banking cartel:

https://digst.dk/it-loesninger/mitid/partnerskabet/

It is a curious construction; we wouldn't accept a personal id card issued / owned by banks but for the digital equivalent we do so with little debate.

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

#260

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sethammons wrote: post #258
kqr wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One implicit benefit of the self-service checkouts is that there's often one line for multiple machines. Any student of queuing theory will know how much this reduces waiting time compared to the one queue per cashier that's otherwise common.

This one gets me every time. I’ve only ever seen a couple super markets or stores implement this for human-operated check out stations. Ross has this, and Best Buy used to during the holidays.

Trader Joe’s does it also, at least in LA.
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