291–300 of 572 posts
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That isn't something isolated to Wegmans or even supermarkets. This[0] image basically says it all, and quality has only further nosedived since 2020. [0] https://i.ibb.co/Zz2Mb6rF/e0vb5drbeh0e1.jpg In general, it seems like the pareto products dont exist anymore, the midrange has basically dropped out for daily products and it's been bifurcated. If quality is a scale from 1-100, most places sell a 1, a 10, or you go…
I know it's widespread, I just would've thought Wegmans would be one of the last to do it. The premium vibes have long been their thing, and it was part of their secret sauce to vastly larger per-square-foot sales in their stores.
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This was proven to be false on the WAN show. Only 20% of transactions were low confidence and handled by mechanical turk. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=433kipkEERY&t=8479s
20% is an incredibly high number though, if a store has 400 people/hour that means you're manually reviewing 80 transactions per hour, over one transaction per minute. That's multiple human employees.
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> operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores Wouldn't surprise me. I know a guy who invented a device for truckers that became ubiquitous in truck stops across the US. This would've been like 2014. He refused to sell on Amazon, so Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price, until he agreed to list (at which point they dropped their…
Did he have a patent?
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This is basically the playbook of every "disruptive technology" startup or FAANG initiative of a similar stripe - set prices incredibly low to bleed out competition and gain market share, then raise them once you are in the dominant market position.
At a certain point it's not about technology anymore, but access to cheap finance. See also: Uber.
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> operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores Wouldn't surprise me. I know a guy who invented a device for truckers that became ubiquitous in truck stops across the US. This would've been like 2014. He refused to sell on Amazon, so Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price, until he agreed to list (at which point they dropped their…
I'm not aware of any Amazon product lines or organizations that specializes in devices for truckers. Can you provide a listing?
While the general premise is true (big company will try to rip off small company), Amazon doesn't have the magical power to get around patent law and the economic penalties are fairly harsh, which is why most companies don't do it. And no war chest of tech patents is going to get Amazon around a patent in the trucking industry because the inventor of the trucking gizmo couldn't care less about whether Amazon patented the right to make Alexa speak in tongues.
It's possible, and likely, that Alibaba vendors decided to rip off the product, but again...patent law is a useful tool for those who use it, and Amazon can be held liable for the sales of infringing products on its storefronts.
Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure things are in order. You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders and they aren’t helpful. I always find expired groceries/produce on the shelf so I have to spend a lot of extra time inspecting each item. The only reason I put up with thei…
Wegmans opened a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard just to show people in NYC what a real supermarket looks like. I mean, you might be impressed with Whole Foods if all you know are those bodegas that have around NYC but if you've been to a real supermarket Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and such are not impressive at all.
The "1000 people in India watching cameras" reveal was the moment the magic died. Once you know the wizard is just a guy behind a curtain, you can't unsee it. The interesting question isn't whether the tech was ready. It wasn't. The question is whether Amazon learned anything useful from the attempt. Computer vision for retail checkout is a legitimate hard problem. Occlusion, similar-looking products, people changing…
I wonder if this is what FSD really is sometimes.