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

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

#591

Post by [deleted] »

6E696365 wrote: post #459
mrangle wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Underpaid" and "fair" is a modern political myth, except in the instances when there is a concerted effort to undermine the semi-natural labor market. Pay will never be enough, as a point of fact. It will always be "underpaid" and "unfair" in discussion. As this is an immortal pressure and negotiating tactic. It is incentivized, and therefore we will get more of it. That works both ways, but at some point there has…

Fascinating that you can see "underpaid" and "fair" wages as political myths but not "unskilled labor."

[deleted]

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

#593

Post by hackerlight »

luma wrote: post #573
hackerlight wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not corpspeak kool-aid? Dominos and Pizza Hut do the same thing. They deliver pizza to people. Dominos knows how to hype the markets, though.

Pizza Hut has in store seating, Dominoes does not.

If Dominos is a logistics company then Pizza Hut is both a logistics company and a dine-in restaurant.

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

#594

Post by tim333 »

omgbear wrote: post #113

There was one in London I used to walk past all the time. It was a neat experience to shop there once, but the selection was very slim and ocado was even more convenient. I'd always peek through the windows and it never had any shoppers.

My experience with London, Canary Wharf - I'm hungry but the darn Amazon app has auto offloaded. Spend 3 minutes re downloading with bad data signal. Buy sandwich. Meh - it was ok but normal check out easier for me.

Chancery lane Tesco who also had one - darn I don't even have the Tesco app, I guess I'll wait for a normal shop.

For me the system would be better if you could just tap your card like everywhere else rather than needing an app.

(mixed reviews on Tesco GetGo https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Tesco+Express/@51.518437...)

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

#595

Post by fer »

asah wrote: post #571

JWO can work in cultures where most people are honest e.g. Japan. JWO stands no chance in cultures where grift is the norm e.g. NYC where people jump turnstiles let alone snatch groceries. Even self checkout struggles. In these cultures, checkout staff invite their friends to shop then "accidentally" forget to ring up an item or two. If you can keep shrinkage to a few percent you're doing great. Source: longtime in t…

JWO as Amazon does it has your identity to begin with, and as per TFA, the problem wasn't keeping people honest but the amount of human verification needed.

If anything, self-checkouts are a larger target to grift and yet they seem to do fine.

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

#596

Post by Dylan16807 »

pessimizer wrote: post #202
realusername wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's basically the same issue. I do think the self scanning is even worse than the self checkout because at least at the self checkout you scan everything once at the end when you're done. The fact that you have to remember to scan every time you put anything in your basket is just worse for the mental load I find.

If manned checkout is a dishwasher and self-checkout is handwashing dishes in the sink after the meal; scan-as-you-shop is eating next to a little basin where you wash each utensil as soon as you're done using it, before you're allowed to return to the meal.

A few seconds between dishes sounds pretty comfortable to me.

Don't forget to mention that with the manned checkout dishwasher, it's fast and powerful but you're stuck standing there until it's done.

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

#597

Post by franga2000 »

hnbad wrote: post #587
franga2000 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is that we can allocate this work in a way that minimizes the amount of time everyone has to spend doing undesirable work. 1. Not all work is equally undesirable and the way people are paid is not related to that in any way (in fact isn't usually inversely related) 2. Minimising the undesirable work done in total means some people end up doing almost all of it and some basically none (or, if you consider…

Sure but you seem to ignore that we don't exist in a socialist society. Cashiers may have an undesirable job and self-checkout may distribute this undesirable labor among the many instead of burdening a single person with it but those people don't get paid for doing that job whereas the cashier did get paid. Self-checkout is also often slower than checkout at a cashier (it has to be because the cashier is trusted to…

This is a great additional perspective, but we seem to be mostly in agreement.

I am quite aware (and rather disappointed) we don't live in a more socialist system, but as we seem to be pretty much stuck under particularly nasty version of capitalism at least for the near future. So unless someone finds a way to turn the whole system around any time soon, I still think at least trying to make some of the worst parts of capitalism somewhat less unbearable is a good thing.

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

#598

Post by blokey »

swores wrote: post #486
kshacker wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what we need is bundling of orders based on 1) restaurant location 2) recipient location 3) time And if that could be done, maybe just 2 orders to start with (for example carpool benefits for 2 people), that will be awesome, but if you could pool 4-5 orders, that will make bank ! I guess this model, if scaled purely based on the model, will imply restaurants co-located (same parking lot) will benefit from such an…

At least in the UK this is the default behaviour from Deliveroo, standard delivery does cost money but might get your driver/biker go to multiple other houses on their way to you, or pay extra to get it direct. It made me stop using them, as there's no way to guess whether the normal option will bring the food fresh or not, and paying the premium each time made it feel too expensive.

Also paying the extra premium (whether Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats) for first delivery is kinda pointless (at least here in the South West) as the drivers seem to be delivering for all the apps at the same time, so your delivery takes 35 mins for the 10 min premium delivery and sometimes they even turn off GPS after they've picked it up if they're delivering for another app first.

So expensive for a frustrating cold food delivery.

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

#599

Post by Dylan16807 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #334
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try the ones at Home Depot. Pretty sure they developed it in-house. It may not prevent loss but from a customer experience, a good barcode scanning gun and legible barcodes is about as friction free as it gets.

Home depot is so overengineered. They are using 24” high res touchscreen pcs with an i7 to just run self checkout. Whoever locked in that contract must be pretty pleased.

A couple hundred dollars is nothing compared to the costs surrounding that PC. Compared to how often systems like that get underbuilt and laggy, using an i7 is a good choice.

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

#600

Post by close04 »

bgun wrote: post #479
ryukoposting wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my point of view, Uber and DD were always going to head in that direction because by any objective measure, they are worse than the solution that already existed. The introduction of a middleman created new costs for drivers, customers, and restaurants alike, yet it's actually worse at delivering food than the conventional "drivers work for the restaurant" model. Sure, you get one website where you can see all t…

Did you ever try getting groceries/food (other than pizza) delivered before the apps? Uber didn’t replace a better option, they made it literally possible to get these services in many places where it wasn’t an option at all. And in areas like Manhattan, where city cabs and delivery options abound - the the fact that many (most?) people still use UberEats/DD is instructive. The value of convenience is significant. I…

> they made it literally possible to get these services

These companies also made it possible for restaurants to be taken hostage and be registered for delivery services or marked as closed/unavailable on those platforms against their wishes, or pay even 60+% commission on an order for the service. Once only a couple of these companies are left standing and have all restaurants in a chokehold I'm convinced the situation will be even "better".

> the the fact that many (most?) people still use UberEats/DD is instructive

Yes, it says that too many people do what's best for them and them alone. It's not as instructive as you think. Many people had slaves because it was good for the owner. What did you learn from that case of "many people do it"?

> I happily pay

You don't and don't even realize that. You get an overall cheaper service but someone pays. Usually the restaurant owner, employees, and delivery people. Maybe some VCs too, for now, while they don't completely own the market. Just like Amazon's same day delivery means some driver has to pee in a bottle for close to minimum wage but otherwise it's absolutely a huge win for everyone who is you, needing the delivery now.

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