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Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#501

Post by Bluecobra »

sylens wrote: post #479
Bluecobra wrote: post #76

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…

Spot on assessment of an Amazon Fresh store. Their big gimmick is a cart where you can scan your groceries as you put them in it, then you just walk through a designated check out lane and it charges your card automatically for whats inside. I've tried it a few times and I can't say its preferrable for any type of shopping trip. Only picking up a few things? You're faster with a basket and self checkout. A big weekly…

They could never get that cart right. I tried using that cart again last week and it was still glitchy and it seems like you waste more time screwing around with the cart. I found it quicker to just use the normal check out since nobody shops there anyway. At my local store, you could go there on a Saturday afternoon and find only one cashier with no line. The Trader Joe’s nearby would be absolutely jammed.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#502

Post by andoando »

mjr00 wrote: post #18

> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go ) Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech ne…

I wonder if they were doing the same thing for palm recognition

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#503

Post by mynameajeff »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #439
AppleAtCha wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really have problems with self-checkout? I use it all the time in box stores like Kroger, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. It seems to work just fine for me and doesn't add more than a minute or two vs just walking out of the store.

Here in Germany, the newer generation self checkout terminals are fine. I use them all the time. No issues. The first generation ones were terrible. The issue with the first generation was that they were too strict with bag placement, weight sensors, etc. They were impossible to use without having to call a very grumpy shop attendant to unlock them. Sometimes multiple times. They were grumpy because all this was tech…

The bag weight sensors was something I was very happy to see go away. I hated self checkouts for years because it was a miserable experience of it freezing every third item and requiring someone to come get it working again. I only realized this tech had changed when COVID forced me to try self checkout again and it was suddenly a very pleasant experience, though one I have to imagine causes a lot of shrink for stores.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#504

Post by throwaway_15612 »

davidst wrote: post #449
mjr00 wrote: post #18

> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go ) Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech ne…

I left the following comment some months ago, duplicating it here: [Disclaimer: Former Amazon employee and not involved with Go since 2016.] I worked on the first iteration of Amazon Go in 2015/16 and can provide some context on the human oversight aspects. The system incorporated human review in two primary capacities: 1. Low-confidence event resolution: A subset of customer interactions resulted in low-confidence c…

Could it be improved by requiring the customers to use a "smart" shopping basket that can read RFC codes from the product packaging? In combination with vision tech it should give a relatively higher accuracy.

If so, is the reason why it is not used related to cost?

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#505

Post by Bluecobra »

itisit wrote: post #401
bee_rider wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there ever good coffee in NYC? I was a kid in the 90’s so I wouldn’t remember any time before. I grew up in NE and am convinced we 1) just haven’t really ever been on the forefront of coffee 2) invented Dunkin Donuts to flip off the coffee world (I know people sometimes say it is good but I think they are just being contrarian (although I will agree it is really not much worse than, or is just as good as, Starbuc…

> Was there ever good coffee in NYC? Before all the third-wave shops came along? D'Amico, Sahadi's, Porto Rico, Zabar's, Gillies, and that's about it. You'd have to have been a coffee buff to seek those places out as a consumer, as they mostly served as suppliers to hospitality.

Zabar’s seems incredible, I saw a mini documentary a while ago and want to visit the next time I am in NYC. How many grocery stores are actually cupping their coffee shipments every week?

https://youtu.be/o3p81V6IuWk

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#506

Post by fc417fc802 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #450
Schlagbohrer wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile in East Asia they have no problem with tons of 24/7/365 stores, even fully vending machine stores. Heck even Europe has vending machine stores that are constantly open without even a door that could be closed, selling grocery basics.

America had 24/7 grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, and even some Walmarts before COVID. Now, at least in my area, thats a thing of the past. Still not as bad as Switzerland where everything closes early on Saturday and is closed on sundays. China has had 24/7 McDonald’s since forever, well, and lord of other things as well. But not grocery stores at least.

The stores where I'm at in the US stopped being 24/7 long before COVID due to (AFAIK) changes in crime rates. I wish they would do some sort of members program where you could register to gain access after hours. I think they've got more than enough video surveillance to handle any abuse that might arise.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#507

Post by hereonout2 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #497
mjr00 wrote: post #18

> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go ) Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech ne…

I’m skeptical of this scoop. It’s reasonable to expect a system like Amazon’s to use human feedback in training, and to quote the article linked on Wikipedia: > Amazon said that the India-based team only assisted in training the model [and validating] a small minority of shopping visits.

I went to Lidl UKs first walk out shop a few weeks ago. You get the bill and receipts about 40 minutes after you've left.

It certainly felt like it could have been sent off to a lower paid country for a human to tot up.

Also consider you're in the store for what, 10 mins - that's a lot of video processing presumably using state of the art CV models. It's quite possibly cheaper to pay a human than rent the H100 to do it.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#508

Post by Bluecobra »

mangodrunk wrote: post #288
0xffff2 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, it's less gaps and more lack of mainstream brands. The example that comes to mind is ketchup. At Whole Foods I can get generic store brand ketchup or a variety of fancy ketchups that cost 3-10x as much, but they don't have any variety of basic Heinz on the shelf. This "mid-market" gap is common for virtually every product category.

That’s true, but intentional because of the focus on organic and avoiding certain ingredients. That is one of the reasons why Whole Foods is better.

I think I remember reading somewhere that 75% of the groceries at Walmart don’t qualify to be sold at Whole Foods. I thought Amazon was going to step back on this though.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#509

Post by grogenaut »

davidst wrote: post #449
mjr00 wrote: post #18

> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go ) Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech ne…

I left the following comment some months ago, duplicating it here: [Disclaimer: Former Amazon employee and not involved with Go since 2016.] I worked on the first iteration of Amazon Go in 2015/16 and can provide some context on the human oversight aspects. The system incorporated human review in two primary capacities: 1. Low-confidence event resolution: A subset of customer interactions resulted in low-confidence c…

The go tech is amazing in 2 places: airport and stadium beverage tunnels. There's a premium price and high volume in those areas. The go tech has basically revolutionized the speed of getting a beer and a dog at the stadium here in Seattle. I can be back in my seat in 4 minutes including the bathroom now which for NFL means I can literally be back in a commercial break sometimes.

no idea how much they make on it, but it's a game changer in that small area.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#510

Post by frutiger »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #495
frutiger wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The child tax credit starts tapering off if your adjusted gross income is more than $200k single ($400k joint). If Bezos is reporting less than that due to other deductions then that’s truly impressive.

It’s really simple. Loans don’t count as income so you use your stock to get guaranteed loans. And you don’t take most of your income on a W2 you take it in stock.

I know. I would still be impressed if Bezos’s w-2 income was below $400k.

Edit: also you need to pay the loan back, and the income to pay it back is taxable. You can die with an outstanding loan, but i’m sure bezos lenders will structure the loan to make sure they get most of their money back.

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