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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

#671

Post by MR4D »

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…

According to Bloomberg, Amazon Go wil continue. I'd bet they are more correct than Gizmodo.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-02/amazon-pu...

From Bloomberg:

"Amazon Go stores will still use Just Walk Out technology, and the company will continue to license it to other retailers. Smaller stores in the UK also will keep using the system."

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

#672

Post by tacocataco »

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...

Some thrift stores let you buy clothes by the pound here in the US. There are always the same people picking out stuff I swear. Probably picking stuff to resell.

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

#673

Post by laurels-marts »

> 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.

This is both sad and pathetic. Not to mention devastates the local community. Instead of kids being able to get their first part-time job in a local shop stocking shelves or doing checkout these opportunities were completely offshored abroad.

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

#674

Post by rascul »

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.

Plenty of Pizza Huts don't have indoor seating anymore. Some Dominos used to, not sure if any do now.

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

#675

Post by astura »

jhbadger wrote: post #128
graemep wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the supermarkets where I live (English Midlands) have scan as you shop. I stopped using it after they required using their loyalty cards/apps to use it.

I'm not a fan of the data tracking that I know those loyalty programs are for, but at least in the US most stores overcharge you if you don't use them (they present it as giving a "discount" if you use them but really you are just getting the fair price denied to non-members) so you would need to have deep pockets to resist them out of principle.

If you're paying with credit card or debit card they are tracking you anyways, might as well get a discount for it.

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

#676

Post by jfoster »

Jochim wrote: post #605
jfoster wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that delivery services add a middle-man, but you don't seem to be considering that they add a lot of value in some important ways: 1. The single website/app is not just useful for discovery, but also to provide a consistent ordering experience. An individual restaurant might take orders over the phone, via their website, or via their own app. Those options will vary from one restaurant to the next. Not grea…

I'm curious as to how food delivery worked in your country before Uber et al. In the UK, outside of corporate chains, it was largely a cash in hand operation for both the restaurants and drivers. Drivers would typically be paid a small sum for showing up on the night and then keep the delivery charge and any tips. The cost to the restaurant was pretty much negligible. The middle-men, in addition to their own cut, hav…

> Drivers would typically be paid a small sum for showing up on the night and then keep the delivery charge and any tips.

Under that model, wouldn't drivers only want to work for the busiest restaurants?

With delivery apps, a restaurant can have just a few orders per night and still be open for delivery.

I would bet that there's an order of magnitude more deliveries happening (and drivers working) these days vs pre-Uber.

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

#677

Post by idontwantthis »

Terr_ wrote: post #397
idontwantthis wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? Did anyone ever try that?

> If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? IANAL but I'm confident the legal answer is "yes", the same as if someone was using sleight-of-hand with objects at a cashier-and-conveyor-belt checkout station. Whether charges are brought and how easily the case can be proved is another matter, but the intent is what makes i…

It sounds different to me because each person can say they were just trying to buy the items they walked out with and didn’t get charged. Like if you scan an item at self checkout and the machine says it’s free, that’s not going to be theft. At least I sure hope not.

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

#678

Post by account-5 »

Aloisius wrote: post #669
account-5 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say all jobs, did I? You successfully listed (some) jobs that might take longer than 30 days to learn. The thing about "unskilled" jobs, everyone seems to look down their noses at, is that they facilite the people doing the lofty jobs of: lawyer, doctor, c++ programmer, etc. Without them getting done for you you couldn't do what you're doing. Can the brickie work without their "unskilled" laborer? Sure, but…

Bricklayer work isn't classified as unskilled labor nor are masonry helpers. Neither are jobs like carpenters, roofers, pipelayers, cooks, truck drivers, clerks and many, many others.

I never said any of those were...

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

#679

Post by kjkjadksj »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #661
kjkjadksj wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but its self checkout. Self checkout had no lag when it came out like 15 years ago. What did the engineers do to their codebase to require a modern i7, I wonder?

Every other checkout I’ve used has lag time after the scan and until the scale settles. Some even have visual feedback that indicates a busy status during this repeating part of the checkout process. Not to mention the human lag time of moving the product to the scale. There is no scale on the Home Depot units. You can scan as fast as the scan gun accepts scans. I’ve scanned 2-3 items per second with these. Using an…

I am sure they are on a three year replacement cycle like every other piece of enterprise compute. Home depot is also not the only place to do fast scanning. Grocers have always been able to scan instantly as long as I’ve been alive at least.

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

#680

Post by phone8675309 »

Animats wrote: post #114
randmeerkat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They likely had this workforce to train a system that they hoped would eventually operate autonomously. That being said, it sounds like it never panned out. And this is why I think current “AI” technologies are a dead end. Once the rest of the market realizes that maybe we’ll finally get past this “AI” hype bubble.

That's an interesting point. Amazon tried an AI application where errors were a cost to Amazon, rather than to the consumer. They failed to make it work well enough to use. What AI applications are in use where the error cost is imposed on the company using them, not the consumer? Reading paper checks and mail envelopes come to mind. Those are automated and work well. Waymo's automatic driving, but not Tesla's. What…

> What AI applications are in use where the error cost is imposed on the company using them, not the consumer?

Air Canada's website AI chatbot for one

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