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Amazon Go

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Re: Amazon Go

#931

Post by JoeAltmaier »

scholia wrote: post #925
agumonkey wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but these often require one or two hosts to unlock issues. I was for the test but I find the self checkout annoying. It's less efficient than the usual kind. You have less space to unload you stuff; less space to rebag them, and the cashier is lighting fast at scanning and grabbing the money because of 7h/day of doing so. I'm not pro human cashier, I don't think lots of cashier really like it either. But self c…

Yes. My main supermarket (a former Safeway in the UK) has one person looking after 20 self-checkout stations. I guess most of us have learned the system by now..... Self-checkout works well for half a dozen items in a hand basket. If you have a trolley full of a week's shopping, you're going to use a cashier. In fact, in this supermarket, you can't even get a trolley into the self-checkout area. My local M&S store ha…

In our local stores in the USA, its one person looking after 4 or 6 stations, 2 or 3 of which are perpetually out of service.

Re: Amazon Go

#932

Post by Whitestrake »

fowl2 wrote: post #924
Gustomaximus wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia if you break something in store, they typically wont charge you, but if they do, they have to charge at cost. I wonder if this another reason many stores dont charge. As any store with a larger markup would have to let you know that $55 vase they were trying to sell you cost them $6.

I've never heard this "rule" before, do you have a source? "Cost" is a pretty flimsy concept.

I thought "cost" was one of the simpler concepts - the price at which the store bought the item from the supplier.

Re: Amazon Go

#933

Post by miend »

pbiggar wrote: post #801
patrickg wrote: post #761

Not many comments about privacy. This is how I see it: You are identified when you enter the shop and amazon knows exactly the products you buy. If you have the choice to buy or not to buy at the shop, that's fine, it is your decision. But let's imagine that in the not so far future, all shops in your neighborhood are like this. No way to go shopping whithout given exact trace of you, your location, the stuff you buy…

Think of the opportunity: someone can build a "privacy" store where you can buy anything without being traced.

I can imagine this being made illegal when mass physical shop tracking becomes the norm (more than it already is).

Re: Amazon Go

#934

Post by curried_haskell »

elicash wrote: post #43

I worked at a grocery store for several years, and one thing I recall is customers CONSTANTLY putting items back in a random aisle, rather than where they found it. I wonder how this tech deals with that? Maybe they figured that out, too. But I was amused in the video when I saw the customer putting it back where it belonged, because that's not how I remember that going... All that said, this is fantastic and excitin…

Are people forgetting the legal perspective?

You can't charge your customer for an item they didn't buy. Trying to make the computer "dumb" doesn't change this. You're going to get angry customers on twitter, chargebacks, and possibly sued.

Re: Amazon Go

#935

Post by Karunamon »

DashRattlesnake wrote: post #922
Karunamon wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the store's fault when you selfishly and silently put perishable goods in non-refrigerated areas so they can spoil? IMO the store would have the right to charge you with destruction of property, if not the cost of the goods they're now out entirely due to your actions. The number of people that never learned "put stuff back where you got it" from their parents is astounding.

> It's the store's fault when you selfishly and silently put perishable goods in non-refrigerated areas so they can spoil? It's incorrect and misleading to talk like that malicious use case is the only one at play here.

Malicious is probably not the right word, more like thoughtless and lazy. The same mentality that leads people to abandon carts willy nilly in the parking lot.

Re: Amazon Go

#936

Post by jedberg »

pwinnski wrote: post #892
dimino wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on comments in here, one would suspect they implemented this entire thing without trying to break it even once.

No company or government in the history of humanity has managed to foresee the myriad ways dishonest people will try to get away with dishonest things. Many, many, many, many, many companies have severely underestimated the high cost of fraud. Also, employees trying to break the system are not likely to bringing young kids shopping with them. The only question I have is who's liable when things are fuzzy: right now,…

Customers has always been liable for these things. It's only because of customer service nightmares that they aren't. It's really not much different except now they store has slightly better data.

Re: Amazon Go

#939

Post by softbuilder »

blackaspen wrote: post #373
softbuilder wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually from the 90s [1]. So much so that I thought it was one of the AT&T "You Will" commercials [2]. [1] http://digest.dx3canada.com/2015/05/12/retrofuture-ibms-1999... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo

Glad to know I wasn't alone in thinking it was an AT&T one...that's what I searched for first. Those were the 80s though, right?

1993. I had to look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Will

And David Fincher? Wow. No idea.

Re: Amazon Go

#940

Post by i336_ »

camtarn wrote: post #222
Magnets wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesco started that back in the late 90s and Sainsburys also did it 5+ years ago, then Tesco seems to have had another go at it recently. edit: Safeway was first, in 1997 The Camden store illustrates the progress Safeway has made in other directions too. As part of its customer friendliness, Safeway was the first of the major food multiples to introduce self-scanning, the system it calls Shop & Go. http://www.manageme…

Our local store installed them to great fanfare back in the 90s, kept them for about a year, then quietly removed them. I was always very curious as to why: perhaps they didn't get used very much, or perhaps customer satisfaction with them was low.

Offhandedly asking why next time you're at a (self-) checkout can't hurt.
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