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Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

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Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#121

Post by jstummbillig »

rpadovani wrote: post #119
jstummbillig wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it way, way quicker. I don't understand the mechanics. You need to put the physical item back and also remove it from the barcode reader, no?

No, that's the fancy part. You pick up a barcode reader at the entrance, something like [0]. When you pick something from the shelf, you scan it, and put in the cart. You don't remove the stuff from the cart until your car, so you can already fill up your bags in the cart! [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Barcode-...

Ah! You mean "remove" as in "after you bought and paid for it" and not "if you decide not to buy it" (as you would remove an article from a online shopping cart). Gotcha.

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#122

Post by novia »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14
novia wrote: post #3

I'm really bummed about this! I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. I don't live in NYC or San Fran or Seattle, but I'd hoped these stores would spread.

>I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. So, basically something a vending machine could provide? We've had those since like the '50s, except without computer vision, user tracking and machine learning. I don't know why Amazon was trying to reinvent the wheel here in the most expensive way possible.

A vending machine for an apple is a bad idea. Apples rot, especially in enclosed spaces. Customers want to be able to pick the best looking apple from a pile of apples.

They don't want to fiddle around with a payment system that might reject their five dollar bill for being too wrinkled, or fail to accurately read their card, just to be served a bruised apple at the end of it.

Think about other even more perishable items, like seafood. Do you want a fish vending machine? Or do you want to be able to examine your food before you decide to purchase it?

Vending machines work well for nonperishables. Grocery stores work well for perishable items.

Grocery stores have a massive time cost for picking up your items, so it makes sense to get a lot of things at once, which only compounds the waiting problem for other customers.

Amazon's solution gets rid of that time cost. The only part you have to worry about is the trouble of getting in the door, and that takes the same amount of time no matter how many items people are buying. The barrier to entry would be being technologically sophisticated enough to download an app on your phone. Some people don't want to do that, and they're free to shop at other stores.

The Amazon Go stores aren't expensive over-engineered vending machines. There's still a time cost to using a vending machine. The innovative part is saving people time.

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#123

Post by b3morales »

Someone1234 wrote: post #89
crazygringo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most of those cameras housings don't contain cameras Do you have a source for that? Because at my local grocery store for example, above the customer service area they have a whole wall of TV's showing the live camera feeds. They're all working. My local convenience store has the live TV's too, by the cashier.

> Do you have a source for that? I know people who work there. Your average Walmart has hundreds of camera housings. Every single aisle has a couple. The amount of cabling alone to populate them all simply doesn't exist (as you can often see, it is an open-box ceiling), and monitoring that many cameras is impractical (in particular for a store staffed at BARELY sustainable levels). Just look at how understaffed the f…

> monitoring that many cameras is impractical

Regardless of how many there are, I believe the point is not to monitor them live but to have recordings if the store wants to bring charges for something.

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#124

Post by ddejohn »

ElFitz wrote: post #113
jstummbillig wrote: post #99

I have actually had a very positive experience with cashier-less shopping – albeit not with Amazon Go and in the EU. As of now, it's been heavily benefited from never having to wait in a line (because the vast majority of people will still opt for the cashier lanes) but I actually found the UX (which in my case always included scanning of products like a cashier would) actually quite delightful and surprisingly never…

Amazon Go was even more incredible than that. Walking out without even having to deal with those pesky self-service cash register, their sometimes finicky scales, and some supermarkets’ more than annoying rules, feels like a weird magic trick. You would just walk in, pick stuff up, and walk out. That’s it. Each time I couldn’t help but feel like I was shoplifting. And then the invoice came in by email, always accurat…

Wait, you don't even have to scan your items? Are they using cameras to detect the items you grab?

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#125

Post by luckylion »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #91
luckylion wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constant filming from every angle is what makes me even more confused when you need to personally tell employees that something is broken somewhere, or the queue for the cash register is miles long, or some sales point isn't staffed and has people waiting. Everything is being watched, why aren't they reacting proactively?

Large corporations assign people roles. The person watching the cameras is there to detect shoplifting. They have no stake in the success of the store. If you want to see a shopkeeper care about that sort of thing, patronize an owner-operated small business.

I don't know about small, but the store I usually shop at is owner-operated (though part of a owner-coop in Germany), but they don't do it.

I get the point of shoplifting watchers not caring about queues, but am I just naive that this should be easy enough to solve with tech? You have lots of images from multiple directions, you know how the store looks empty, you can probably do a decent-enough image discovery to find out roughly where people are. If there are 15 people in front of the checkout, ring a small bell somewhere and have a person check whether it's time to open another checkout.

I can shop, scan the products while I walk through the shop with my phone, pay with the app and open a gate to bet let out with my purchased goods, but the computer can't use the camera signal to figure out how where people are?

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#126

Post by pessimizer »

luckylion wrote: post #67
crazygringo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In basically every retail store, and especially grocery/convenience stores, you are being observed by security cameras at literally every second. In every aisle. This has been the case for decades. It's how they catch shoplifters. I rather like the fact it can be used for customer convenience now, rather than just punitively.

The constant filming from every angle is what makes me even more confused when you need to personally tell employees that something is broken somewhere, or the queue for the cash register is miles long, or some sales point isn't staffed and has people waiting. Everything is being watched, why aren't they reacting proactively?

Cameras film, people watch. They're not willing to pay more cashiers, they're certainly not willing to pay a bunch of people to stare at cameras all day. Instead it's zero, one or two people. They have enough on their plate just virtually following visually suspicious people through the store.

edit: I include zero because a lot of it is seeing that a "suspicious type" has entered the store, and running to the back room to watch their every move until they leave.

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#127

Post by ddejohn »

Nextgrid wrote: post #118
rpadovani wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy, it has been years, if not decades, that in a chain of large supermarkets there is a system where, when you enter the supermarket, you can pick up a barcode reader. While you are doing your shopping, you scan your products. At the exit, you scan a QR code to end the shopping, you pay, and off you go. The huge advantage, apart from no queues, is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it wa…

Only problem is that this relies on a loyalty card, at least for the ones I've seen, which makes it a non-starter for many people.

Why is a loyalty card a non-starter?

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#128

Post by [deleted] »

Nextgrid wrote: post #118
rpadovani wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy, it has been years, if not decades, that in a chain of large supermarkets there is a system where, when you enter the supermarket, you can pick up a barcode reader. While you are doing your shopping, you scan your products. At the exit, you scan a QR code to end the shopping, you pay, and off you go. The huge advantage, apart from no queues, is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it wa…

Only problem is that this relies on a loyalty card, at least for the ones I've seen, which makes it a non-starter for many people.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#129

Post by joezydeco »

ddejohn wrote: post #124
ElFitz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon Go was even more incredible than that. Walking out without even having to deal with those pesky self-service cash register, their sometimes finicky scales, and some supermarkets’ more than annoying rules, feels like a weird magic trick. You would just walk in, pick stuff up, and walk out. That’s it. Each time I couldn’t help but feel like I was shoplifting. And then the invoice came in by email, always accurat…

Wait, you don't even have to scan your items? Are they using cameras to detect the items you grab?

Correct. It's pretty amazing when it works. I used to try and speedrun the Go store and see how fast it worked. My fastest visit was 9 seconds, receipt was 100% accurate.

Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

#130

Post by bogomipz »

kube-system wrote: post #100
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cameras everywhere and computer vision seems overkill. If the goal is cashierless, why not just have a store full of vending machines? You pick what you want, tap your card or phone, then you get it, then walk out.

Vending machines have very strict packaging requirements. They simply can’t handle a wide variety of products.

That hasn't been true in a very long time. A walk through any major airport shows otherwise. The Best Buy Express vending machine is 10 years old at this point and that is just one of many brands now that have similar offerings. See:

https://blog.bestbuy.ca/tv-audio/headphones-tv-audio/best-bu...

and

https://thepointsguy.com/news/things-sold-airport-vending-ma...

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