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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

#401

Post by dbg31415 »

Nanana909 wrote: post #59
aendruk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s listed as a drop-off location when you’re returning a traditional web order. There’s no warning about it being an innavigable dystopia in the return flow. I had the same experience.

Is that an issue with the store concept, or an issue with not making it clear to users that it’s a non standard drop off location? I don’t see the lack of a warning reflecting on the actual store itself very strongly. Also- why even bother with Amazon and trying to return packages etc if you have no easy way of getting your password? If this is too much of a hassle just use in person stores.. I’ve had drop off at mai…

> Is that an issue with the store concept, or an issue with not making it clear to users that it’s a non standard drop off location?

It's a flaw with how Amazon communicated drop off locations for returns.

You would say, "I want to return this." And they would respond with, "Take it here!" no additional information about having to have an app.

If you take a return to The UPS Store, for example, you just bring the item you're returning and a little QR / UPC code they scan and you're done.

If you take a return to the Amazon store... they won't even let you get to the point where you can return without having an app on your phone. It was annoying.

Especially if you were taking someone else's package back with your own. Or... more accurately, returning something for your girlfriend since she bought 3 tops with the intent of only keeping one and had to do a return like every 3 days because of her shopping habits. And she just assumed it worked the same as returns at The UPS Store... and then when you got there to drop off the package you couldn't even sign in as her. Ha.

I feel the original posters frustration around this. For a company that has always said, "It's all about the customer experience..." it was REALLY BAD customer experience. And, because it wasn't me setting up the original returns, I got sent to the dumb little "make you log in before you can enter" store a few times by mistake.

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

#402

Post by everforward »

Symbiote wrote: post #259
HDThoreaun wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but is never going to be the reason people pick one store over another. speak for yourself. I commonly wait in line at the walgreens near me for longer than I was shopping for. If I had the choice between walgreens and the exact same store with cashierless tech I'd never go to walgreens.

There's the middle option. Last year my local discount supermarket replaced one checkout lane and a shelf of alcohol with 6 self-checkout machines. So far, I've never seen a queue for these, and they're quick to use.

Anecdata, but both of the ones by me typically have lines unless you go during slow times (9-11am, 2pm-4pm, after 9pm).

It's often deceptively faster to go through the cashiered lines because of how quickly they can scan and bag.

It's surprising how fast they are. The duo can frequently scan and bag faster than I can pull stuff out of my cart.

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

#403

Post by thoughtpalette »

nprateem wrote: post #30

I 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…

YMMV.

Was a big fan of the one in Chicago (I'm now remote). Never had any issues. Great selection of food/snacks/drinks. App always worked flawlessly.

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

#404

Post by justeleblanc »

CydeWeys wrote: post #66
justeleblanc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larceny goes to a jury where you live?

It's a criminal charge, so yes, according to the Sixth Amendment it could go to a jury trial in any jurisdiction.

I guess you mean in any jurisdiction in the US. Where I live, jury trials are for the highest level of crimes (the translation would be felony I guess).

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

#405

Post by rnk »

bentley wrote: post #281
rnk wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of the go stores was to do retail in a different way, where you had to conform to their way or it wouldn't work. Yes, it was limiting for people that didn't have a phone with them or account info. Do all of these people befuddled by the phone/app requirement for go stores struggle when they go to pick up something at an amazon locker? It's basically the same thing, you can't "talk to someone" to get y…

You can access an Amazon locker with a barcode printed from the Amazon website, or even from your confirmation email. The app is not required.

good point - I forgot about that. I added my son's account once to access a locker for pickup too.

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

#406

Post by hot_gril »

Nanana909 wrote: post #59
aendruk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s listed as a drop-off location when you’re returning a traditional web order. There’s no warning about it being an innavigable dystopia in the return flow. I had the same experience.

Is that an issue with the store concept, or an issue with not making it clear to users that it’s a non standard drop off location? I don’t see the lack of a warning reflecting on the actual store itself very strongly. Also- why even bother with Amazon and trying to return packages etc if you have no easy way of getting your password? If this is too much of a hassle just use in person stores.. I’ve had drop off at mai…

You get a whole class of issues like this making stuff rely on a phone app.

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

#407

Post by cstejerean »

yukinon wrote: post #386
cstejerean wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Blue Apron for a while and got an unreasonable amount of salmon for some reason. It's been almost 6 years and I can still barely eat salmon after that. So I can definitely understand where the prisoners were coming from on this one.

This comment is confusing to me, because Blue Apron lets you select your own meals. Why would you continue to select salmon if you had it too often?

Things might have changed since then, but from what I recall while we had some options on what to pick, for example I could eliminate red meat entirely, there was no option to get meat and not get salmon. So pretty much every week at least one of the meals was salmon.

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

#408

Post by sentientslug »

__derek__ wrote: post #232
CydeWeys wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the whole point of Amazon generally, and these stores specifically in not having staff, that it's supposed to be cheaper? I think you've pinpointed the reason it failed, but I can't imagine why they thought it was going to succeed at those prices.

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

Just because they're blowing money on it doesn't mean it's a successful concept

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

#409

Post by dang »

baumy wrote: post #37
nprateem wrote: post #30

I 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…

Seems like a very weird way of blaming a well defined system for your unwillingness to meet its prerequisites. It would take approximately a few minutes to discover that you need the app to get into the store and get that sorted. You are capable of this, just apparently too lazy or unwilling for some unclear reason. The return experience seems entirely orthogonal to the rest of the story here, and I'm not sure why yo…

Please don't cross into personal attack. It's against the HN rules and you can make your substantive points without it.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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

#410

Post by code_duck »

jarjoura wrote: post #242
code_duck wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to note is that other retailers do that too - track people around stores with Bluetooth and I assume other methods, noting where shoppers linger, what they buy and what they hesitate on. But they don't tell us they do this.

Not that you're wrong, but there's definitely a huge perceptual difference when one method is done visually and another is done anonymously. Amazon Go's system knows who I am, what item I grab off the shelf, put back and then what I ultimately leave with. There's so much personal information they gather from that order and it shows up downstream across their other products. Bluetooth tracking can't attach a face to t…

Sure, that's true, but we don't know that the other stores aren't also using visual tracking and analysis. Also, it's not anonymous since they match shoppers to real world identities with store apps, wifi, shopper loyalty cards and probably payment methods.
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