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Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
391–400 of 416 posts
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#392I had to go to one to return a package. I couldn't get past the turnstiles because I don't use the app and don't know my password because I use a password manager. This meant I couldn't hand my parcel in at the counter. The woman on the turnstile wouldn't let me in even when I explained the situation. So she went off and got a scanner to take my package. She didn't offer a receipt, and when I asked for one said it wa…
Or, just log in to your account in the browser and the return page has a QR code for the store employe to scan. I did a return a few weeks ago and I was in and out in 30 seconds, even though I don't use the app.
I had my QR code. That's why the employee had to go for the scanner. I couldn't get to the returns counter.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oysters were poor people food in the same era, and like now, many people ate them raw. It has less to do with culinary trends and much more to do with the relative productivity of the lobster fishery. (In recent years, the lobster fishery has been really productive, but prices have been pretty sticky[0].) Mark Kurlansky's The Big Oyster has some great primary source research on the social status of eating shellfish t…
At the time when lobsters were fed to prisoners, they hadn’t yet figured out the boiling-them-alive trick, which is supposedly how you get lobster to taste good. I don’t know anything about oysters though.
Boiling lobster (and other things) alive is more about preventing food poisoning as bacteria appears quickly as soon as it's dead. You could kill a lobster right before cooking it (not boiled alive) and have the same flavor + reducing health risks.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well since the return process took the best part of 15 minutes for this state-of-the-art store, and I would have had no recourse if the refund didn't go through (since I had no proof I'd returned it), I won't be rushing back in a hurry. So in that respect it was a failure.
15 minutes to return something honestly seems… fine? Like I’ve gone to brick and mortar stores to return things and had it take upwards of an hour for the overworked customer service folks to make it through the line of folks
If I'd known it was going to take like 10 times longer than usual I'd have gone somewhere else or not gone on my lunch break.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've employed a "Amazon is the first and best customer" for most of the services they've launched. Amazon.com / AWS is an example.
Was Amazon actually the first customer for AWS (being a very early customer counts)? I've heard that they were, but I've also heard that the AWS guys designed for a different customer base first. Like the eBay Pez story it makes sense and adds credibility for the narrative to be that Amazon was the first customer for AWS. But it feels like a very unamazon thing to do, given that so much of its customer base isn't run…
iirc aws exists mainly because amazon kept needing capacity, and after solving that problem it then had a bunch of excess capacity
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was Amazon actually the first customer for AWS (being a very early customer counts)? I've heard that they were, but I've also heard that the AWS guys designed for a different customer base first. Like the eBay Pez story it makes sense and adds credibility for the narrative to be that Amazon was the first customer for AWS. But it feels like a very unamazon thing to do, given that so much of its customer base isn't run…
iirc aws exists mainly because amazon kept needing capacity, and after solving that problem it then had a bunch of excess capacity
Excess capacity story is a myth. Frequently corrected/debunked by Werner Vogels.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#397I used to visit one of the NYC the Go stores daily until covid happened. It was cute and surgically clean, worked wonderfully, and their inventory management was much better then CVS and Duane Reade which often sell out of things and have empty shelves for days. But nobody ever went there - no matter what time of the day I went, there would be one person doing inventory and stocking, two people standing by to help pe…
There's nothing wrong with quinoa. Makes excellent insulation or packaging material. Some crazy bastards will even try and eat it.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#398I had a really positive experience visiting when they first opened up in Seattle. Felt like the future. Wish they started to outfit the Whole Foods all over more with them.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are people so weird about food? What about quinoa made it associated with rich yuppies? If you didn’t already know you would probably assume the main consumers would be dudes who want their chicken and carb to have even more protein.
There's reports of prisoners complaining about the torture of being fed salmon all the time, because it used to be common food. People signal their class and status through everything, also through food.
The lumber camp installation inside the Nordic Hertitage Museum (Seattle) shows a sample employee contract: Salmon will not be served more than 3 times per week.
At the time, salmon was the cheapest, most abundant source of protein. Poor people's food.
IIRC, lobster in New England was about the same.
Re: Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did it fail? They just announced that eight stores were permanently closed after having been closed indefinitely, one of which was inside of an Amazon office that shut down last year.[1] It looks like they still have 29 Go stores open nationwide.[2] [1]: https://www.geekwire.com/2023/amazon-closing-eight-amazon-go... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011
I'm also seeing this tech in some airports in basically a linear contained store. Walk in, walk down the tunnel grab what you want, walk out. Seemed very efficient and airport appropriate
Sports venues, too. They have the Amazon version installed at Climate Pledge Arena and a few baseball stadiums, but I've seen something similar at a walk-up beer fridge during a Nets game at the Barclays Center.