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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

#741

Post by MisterBastahrd »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #200
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the various jobs I had during the 90s to put myself through college was stocking store shelves in a large grocery store. During my time there, I placed every item on the shelf by hand, rotated forward, so that the shelves were easy to front and look respectable by the time the morning came. After a few months, it was fairly easy to eyeball an item in the case, lift it while rotating, and place it on the shelf…

There is a possibly unexpected advantage to stocking the shelves with boxed items: if the customer wants to purchase items in bulk, they can retrieve the boxes just as easily as they were put there. As a customer, I do that a lot for unperishable goods.

Not going to work for them because they're tearing the front covers off of the boxes.

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

#742

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

skywhopper wrote: post #663
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, demanding software level margins for physical world businesses basically hasn't worked anywhere in the past ten years. Like the only success I can see is AirBnB and that's because houses are expensive and in short supply.

I mean, AirBnB has contributed directly to the housing shortage in many areas, so I'm not sure it "worked".

From a financial perspective I think it's worked. From a societal perspective I'd agree with you.

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

#743

Post by kjkjadksj »

op00to wrote: post #733
Dylan16807 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not going to get a felony conviction.

They don’t convict based on the video or whatever. They learn their patterns and catch them the next time they come in and steal. Loss prevention associates know most of the usual suspects on sight.

I expect the thieves are in and out before loss prevention even shows up, especially if they are masked up. Think about it logically: if loss prevention was able to actually work, they wouldn’t have to put so much merchandise under lock and key in high theft areas.

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

#744

Post by kjkjadksj »

pas wrote: post #625
kjkjadksj wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that money down the drain now that people just wear hoodies and facemasks to shoplift

why are they not employing the fearless mall cops to ask people to take off their hoodies as they are running away with the loot?

Theft is effectively a solved issue even without security, since Target probably insures for it and we pay for their policy through their markup.

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

#745

Post by ToucanLoucan »

jfoster wrote: post #676
Jochim wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-U…

Honestly I think there's a great role something like Uber could fill, simply as a nationalized, not-for-profit tax funded arrangement that businesses could opt into, maybe even a branch of the post office. Ensure delivery people get good benefits and pay for doing a needed job, and the service brings those people, restaurants and stores, and consumers together. We could make things more convenient for people, provide businesses with more opportunities to sell their products, while providing a lot of jobs to people who need them, and also cutting down on the number of vehicles going around at any given moment.

The main drawbacks to these services are the outrageous fees they charge to make money, and that there's more than one so drivers and businesses have to manage an array of phones or tablets. This would address both of those things.

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

#746

Post by mlrtime »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #738
mlrtime wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm following this thread and still don't understand what you think "enough" is. The person you are replying to makes sense to me. This is just a fyi when trying to write out your thoughts.

That is because I have not given a definition for it. I don't have a specific one in mind. I just think "100% of surplus value" is a wrong definition, so using that definition to argue that "in a very literal sense, pay can never be enough" is a very flawed argument. I don't think I need to offer my own definition to claim that, do I? They later said it's subjective, which seems to favor my claim. Does that clear thi…

I was just trying to follow the conversation which I felt was more interesting than the amazon story.

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

#747

Post by pas »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #744
pas wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why are they not employing the fearless mall cops to ask people to take off their hoodies as they are running away with the loot?

Theft is effectively a solved issue even without security, since Target probably insures for it and we pay for their policy through their markup.

Sure, but they are constantly looking for ways to increase that margin. If they can decrease theft in a cost efficient way ...

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

#748

Post by clocot »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #277
saalweachter wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the "if anything goes wrong you now stand around with your thumb up your ass while one employee makes their way from broken kiosk to broken kiosk to manually resolve the problems" model has soured me on self-checkout. I find I have a very low "dealing with this bullshit" limit, to the point that if I have trouble I'm likely to just say fuck it and walk out of the store without completing my purchase.

Having used the UK/US type self checkout machines while travelling, I must say it is so nice to live in Northern Europe where the self checkout machines are largely just based on trust, with randomly sampling ~five items of every 100 shoppers. There is no weighing at any of the stores. If you don't get randomly selected for inspection, there is nothing stopping you from just walking out with groceries you didn't pay…

[flagged]

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

#749

Post by Zpalmtree »

stringsandchars wrote: post #490
diggan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. Scan-as-you-shop has been around for at least a decade at this point I think, at least in some parts of the world. ICA (supermarket in Sweden) been doing it for as long as I can remember, and I came across this image of the scanner being used at the store on Mediawiki: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S…

> (like a high-trust environment like Sweden) You maybe don't know that Sweden is consistently near the top of shoplifting statistics in Europe.

I'm sure that's due to the native swedes....
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