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Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

gizmodo.com

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Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#381

Post by unscaled »

smugma wrote: post #194

Uniqlo (in Japan and at least in SF) has a cool checkout method. You drop your clothes into a big bin (I’ve always done it one piece at a time, didn’t think to do all at once) and it adds up all your items. I’ve used this maybe 8 times, 100% accurate so far. Not sure how it works but I guessed RFID and quick Google appears to confirm: https://www.wsj.com/articles/uniqlos-parent-company-bets-big...

Uniqlo checkout experience is really how self-checkout should be look like, but unfortunately relies on controlling the manufacturing of all products to implement efficiently.

The closest thing I've seen in a convenience store, was a fully automated 7-Eleven that I ran across in Taipei last year. It seems to rely on smart shelves[1], rather than just product video recognition. This could work for most types of groceries.

[1] https://www.retail-insight-network.com/news/7-eleven-itri-st...

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#382

Post by Izkata »

ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #336
WrongAssumption wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never been nor seen anyone in the US get inspected at a self checkout. Not once.

That's because all of the self checkouts in the US use the weight change to match against the scanned item and any discrepancy leads to having to wait for a self-checkout attendant to manually override to let you continue. That manual override is equivalent to the inspection you're talking about not seeing. And I in the US get blocked needing an attendant 60%+ of the time at some point in the process. Usually up fron…

That's happened maybe 4 or 5 times to me in the 200 trips or so (estimated, once a week for years) I've made since I started using the self-checkout every time. It's so reliable and fast for me (store: Jewel-Osco), I just don't have the problems others here are seeing. Usually while waiting in line I don't see anyone else have issues either.

Remove from basket, scan, put in bag. Remove from basket, scan, put in bag.

The scale is the entire bagging area, and it detects when things were removed or added without being scanned, as far as I know that's all it does here. No specific weights.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#383

Post by gmd63 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #239
bilalq wrote: post #190

This is pretty sad to read. Before Covid, the Amazon Go store experience was phenomenal. All the convenience of a 7-Eleven but with the pricing of a normal grocery store. The food options were really good and the BlueApron style meal-kits were amazing. The Alexa integration was also nice for being able to just verbally ask what's the next step on a recipe while you're busy stirring or chopping things. When it rolled…

Lots of services would be phenomenal when you can offload much of the cost to run them to cheap offshore labor. Remember how great Uber and Doordash were when much of the cost of operating was offset by underpaid workers and VC funds? Now that they don't have unlimited piles of money and cities/states are making them pay more fair wages, the cost-benefit of those services has diminished. I was ok paying $5 for $20 of…

Don’t forget moviepass

Problem is, when you get an economy acclimated to false prices set by adversarial “business” “strategy”, the only logical result is depression when it’s time to actually create money for investors

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#384

Post by giancarlostoro »

i_am_jl wrote: post #371
bombcar wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish it could all be managed intelligently; I'm hungry but I can wait, let orders collect and make them all at once or something. Dominos had this down pat twenty years ago, how come everything with an app is so much more expensive?

>Dominos had this down pat twenty years ago, how come everything with an app is so much more expensive? The people making the app need a much bigger cut than Domino's. Domino's cut only needs to be big enough to pay their delivery drivers, they make their money selling pizza and the delivery is just an additional service that drives business. The app maker needs a cut big enough to pay their delivery driver and also…

So if Uber buys out some small grocery store chains it could work, especially if its in major market cities.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#385

Post by shagie »

i_am_jl wrote: post #371
bombcar wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish it could all be managed intelligently; I'm hungry but I can wait, let orders collect and make them all at once or something. Dominos had this down pat twenty years ago, how come everything with an app is so much more expensive?

>Dominos had this down pat twenty years ago, how come everything with an app is so much more expensive? The people making the app need a much bigger cut than Domino's. Domino's cut only needs to be big enough to pay their delivery drivers, they make their money selling pizza and the delivery is just an additional service that drives business. The app maker needs a cut big enough to pay their delivery driver and also…

I would contend that Dominos is a pizza logistics company rather than a seller of retail pizza (compare Pizza Hut).

https://biz.dominos.com/about-us/innovations/

They're not just selling pizza to make money - but also looking at making cars.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/why-dominos-dxp-d...

While I'm not going to claim that was a good idea, the point is that Dominos sees making and delivering pizza as one and the same business.

> 154 examples of the DXP cars were built. Along with the delivery driver, each DXP car could carry up to 45 pizzas, 12 two-liter sodas, and all the extra dipping sauces one could ever want. Add to that the fact that the car’s still held their five-year 100,000-mile warranty, were cheap on gas, and created a surprising amount of buzz, it is hard not to look at the DXP program as a success, low production aside.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#386

Post by Izkata »

ricardobeat wrote: post #368
bilalq wrote: post #190

This is pretty sad to read. Before Covid, the Amazon Go store experience was phenomenal. All the convenience of a 7-Eleven but with the pricing of a normal grocery store. The food options were really good and the BlueApron style meal-kits were amazing. The Alexa integration was also nice for being able to just verbally ask what's the next step on a recipe while you're busy stirring or chopping things. When it rolled…

Self-checkout is seamless in Europe. I don't see anything that would stop the US from having the same.

It is for me too in the US. I think it's either specific stores/chains or user error.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#387

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

dangerwill wrote: post #231
nemothekid wrote: post #212

There was a startup, Standard Cognition, that offered the same experience, but I checked their website ( https://standard.ai/ ) and it seems they have given up on it too. Edit: Looking over their marketing videos now and taking a more optimistic approach, is "just walk out" technology all that useful? It seems they pivoted to a product where is much clearer what the value add is (Predictive analytics, loss prevention…

Well from the article it's clear that this camera+ai based detection of purchases never worked for Amazon. They had to rely on Indian contractors watching people remotely. It never technically worked, and even if it did, then yeah I agree that it wouldn't make economic sense. Cameras with that level of fidelity and with 100% coverage, tracking N customers at once, are probably a huge capital expense. And all for slig…

I would pay 5% more for my groceries if I never had to wait in the checkout line. I’m a kind of customer that has tried grocery delivery, and didn’t reject it because of the cost, but instead for other reasons like I want to pick out my own food, I don’t want it left sitting when they deliver it, I can get it faster myself etc. I would definitely pay money to make grocery shopping faster and more convenient. I suspect there are a lot like me.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#388

Post by doktrin »

wolverine876 wrote: post #359
ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social safety net is more than just being able to afford it. It's a combination of not being able to afford it and general erosion of social values leading to "take what you can get away with" mentality. So even those that can afford it will still try to get more since it's everyone for themselves. Instead of cooperation under a system with a social safety net, we get a game theoretic weighting on defection without a…

> Social safety net is more than just being able to afford it. It's a combination of not being able to afford it and general erosion of social values leading to "take what you can get away with" mentality. There's a causal arrow in the other direction, IMHO: People like to believe in the 'law of the jungle' mentality and thus vote to cut the safety net. IME it's especially wealthy people for whom it's a kind of game,…

A lot of house cats walking around imagining themselves to be lions.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#389

Post by anonacct37 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #254
bilalq wrote: post #190

This is pretty sad to read. Before Covid, the Amazon Go store experience was phenomenal. All the convenience of a 7-Eleven but with the pricing of a normal grocery store. The food options were really good and the BlueApron style meal-kits were amazing. The Alexa integration was also nice for being able to just verbally ask what's the next step on a recipe while you're busy stirring or chopping things. When it rolled…

> Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped. Wow - I did not know this. This makes it all a whole lot less impressive and interesting that it was just people off shore watching you.

What I think is funny is that circa 2008 I had a manager who used to work at Amazon who told me that "a surprising amount of Amazon artificial intelligence is artificial artificial intelligence, low paid workers".

I heard this was behind mechanical turk. Sounds like the playbook remained the same.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#390

Post by Izkata »

arcticbull wrote: post #367
FourOnTheFloor wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this was an obvious sham and a fraud that couldn't scale. I don't think its demise is sad at all. What's sad is putting cashiers out of work, and even worse is replacing them with outrageously piss-poor alternatives. Self-checkout is a clinic on incompetent system design, and has been for DECADES now. It's mind-bogglingly bad, all to take jobs away from people. Fuck that.

Why is it a fraud? Did they ever tell you it was entirely computer-driven? I thought their value proposition was you could just ... walk out. This feels pretty inescapably the future. Why have people do bad jobs like cashier work when computers could do them instead? This is why UBI is going to be critical. We're moving to a world where we'll have more people than work, and that's not just ok - it's fantastic. They'r…

> Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Our Just Walk Out Technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you're done shopping, you can just leave the store. A little later, your receipt will be available and we will charge your payment method.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

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