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Amazon Go

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Re: Amazon Go

#941

Post by 6t6t6t6 »

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…

In a regular store, customers are anonymous, so they can be jerks without fear of consequences.

If I understand well, in Amazon Go, every customer has an account linked to a credit card. I guess that this will work as a deterrent. I a customer does something wrong, they can get a warning. Next time, the account is canceled. Problem solved.

Re: Amazon Go

#942

Post by i336_ »

robryan wrote: post #880
parennoob wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have given up on bagging as I check out. It goes crazy every time I open a bag and set it in the bagging area. So now I just pile up my groceries and bag them when I'm done, which wastes everyone's time. This. Trying to do the following a) Open one of the cellophane bags that are stuck closely together b) Put the product I just scanned in it c) Take my hand away so it reads the weight correctly ...are way too dif…

The ones in supermarkets in Australia started off with a lot of weight related issues. Seems to work fine now, not sure if they have gotten smarter or just less picky with weights.

At the mall where I live, Woolworths insists on bag weighing but Coles actually has it turned off!

This is awesome, as it's incredibly time-saving. At Woolworths I generally have to look like a doofus holding my next item to scan in front of the scanner for at least 2 seconds while the machine is frozen as it slowly weight-checks the item I just bagged...

At Coles the bottleneck is the speed at which I can bag things. Usually I just cram as many things into one bag as possible (I always repack later) and checking out takes under a minute.

NB: The Coles where I live is toward the back of the mall and reasonably far away from the center's exits. I think this has had an impact on the number of items that go walkies, which is why they were able to disable it. (The Woolworths on the other hand is practically outside - leaving there is like going through airport security, they physically rummage through your bags!)

Re: Amazon Go

#943

Post by i336_ »

chei0iaV wrote: post #881
vyrotek wrote: post #29

They will most certainly be tracking a lot more than just you picking up your item. The data they collect about shopping behavior will be interesting. Like, how long I hesitated before I picked up something, what I had already in my "cart" at the time, what deals I looked at but passed on, etc.

Welcome to the Skinner Box. If you take a slice of cake, hold it for 12 second, frown, put it back, spin clockwise three times and buy a lowfat plain yogurt, you will get a discount for sugar-free pastry on your next visit... if you did it just right.

Oh no. There are a whole group of people who will learn to get really good at this thanks to computer games...

Hopefully the next generation of shopping carts have dashcams on them?

Re: Amazon Go

#944

Post by DanBC »

dogma1138 wrote: post #319
makecheck wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from putting up the odd sign to discourage certain behavior, no, I do not think that stores have any good reason to bend over backwards to keep individual customers. Retail is far too accommodating already. Some people figure that being a “valued customer” means they can be an unending source of sunken costs in time, effort and stress, among other things. And those costs can be multiplied across the other custo…

Stores bake that into the cost of doing business, it's like dropping something and breaking it, in the vast vast majority of cases you won't be charged for it, just be clean up on aisle 3... Heck I've dropped jars or similar things during bagging after paying for them several times and every time I was offered a replacement. Mistakes happen, it's often considerably more expensive to deal with customer complaints espe…

> > Some people figure that being a “valued customer” means they can be an unending source of sunken costs in time, effort and stress, among other things.

> Stores bake that into the cost of doing business

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37711091

> "I return half of what I buy," says 30-year-old Alex Demetri, who spends £500 to £700 on clothes each month.

> She also admits to wearing some of her clothes first before returning them.

> It is customers like Ms Demetri who are causing problems for shops, which are "struggling to cope" with the number of items returned, new research suggests.

> So-called "serial returners" are bringing back items which have been used, are marked or have parts missing, making a quarter of it unfit to resell.

Occasional mistakes happen, but some people deliberately do this kind of stuff.

Re: Amazon Go

#945

Post by i336_ »

w-ll wrote: post #877
leesalminen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They always try to get me to punch in my loyalty card when buying (only) tobacco even though you don't get points on the purchase. It's made me wonder what they're doing with that data, and selling it to insurance companies came to mind.

I generally retire loyalty cards after a few months and ask for a new one next time I checkout. I also never fill in the phone number or other information. But still I generally pay with cc/debit cards so the banks still know where, not necessarily what, but how much I spent.

What benefit is there in retiring loyalty cards? Creating noise to deflect data collection? Optimizing for returns on some financial aspect?

Re: Amazon Go

#946

Post by ceedan »

chongli wrote: post #649
ceedan wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They would not be there if they weren't getting paid for it." That's not true. There are nice people in the world.

I know what volunteering is: I do it myself. Every week I spend several hours helping kids with their homework at a local school. This is not at all the same thing as spending 8 hours a day working a cash register, dealing with rude customers without being rude in return, being expected to cover coworkers' shifts when they're sick, working during holiday hours instead of spending time with family, etc. etc. etc.

Your response seems irrelevant to mine.

Being nice is not a behavior that is only exibited when paid to do so, as you seem to believe.

Re: Amazon Go

#947

Post by darpa_escapee »

Apocryphon wrote: post #635
Ph0X wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't that we save 2 minutes, it's that there's now 10 less job we need. And that may seem as a negative at first, but the idea is that as more and more job get automated, prices should go down until the point where people will not have to work full weeks anymore, or rather, focus on learning and reaching higher education, rather than doing dummy work all day (aka just scanning items non stop for 8 hours).

Losing 10 jobs to automation would be far less concerning if the businesses and individuals that cut the jobs would reinvest a greater percentage of their newfound profits into social programs to retrain the 10 people who are now without jobs. Or into a fund for the much-vaunted basic income, even.

Reminder that unions have negotiated and continue to negotiate compensation plans from employers that automate away or move jobs overseas to workers that are replaced.

Re: Amazon Go

#948

Post by steego »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #900
steego wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you bothered to ask yourself where the money goes after it's put in the pockets of Bezos' and other Amazon investors? Do you think that money is just sitting in the bank doing nothing?

I am guessing other pet projects, R&D for Amazon. Clearly not in cancer research or funding of infrastructure or investments in other need base communities. Last time I heard Amazon is struggling with net positive cash flow because it keeps on re-investing profits into various other side projects with eventual goal of dominating retail space e.g. Amazon Go.

Why would Amazon invest its profits in cancer research? Wouldn't you expect a drug or biotechnology company to invest their profits in cancer research?

Amazon is in the business of creating a marketplace that efficiently matches buyers and sellers. It provides a distribution infrastructure for sellers and provides a high level of service for buyers.

Re: Amazon Go

#949

Post by dimino »

dogma1138 wrote: post #820
dimino wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be nice, for the stores, if they didn't have to bake so much "attrition" into their accounting.

The attrition is going to be high anyhow, tons of stuff gets damaged during shipping, handling and stocking, tons more is never sold. Most large stores take out nearly everything off the shelves at night even if it's still within it's "use before" date which on it's own is utterly nonsensical to begin with as most items don't expire for days, if not weeks, months and even years from the "use/best before" date. People…

I get that there's a lot of attrition, but less attrition would be nice.

Re: Amazon Go

#950

Post by mdorazio »

_gfrc wrote: post #33
mdorazio wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I remember predictions of RFID-based shopping becoming the norm 10 years ago, but it never happened. Does anyone know why the tech didn't pan out that way?

RFID tags are still to expensive in the supermarket context. The margins are usually razor thin (at least in Germany) and the products are quite cheap. Even when buying RFID tags in bulk they are too expensive.

That makes sense. I had assumed that RFID tags were at the sub-penny level of cost by now. Looks like they're well above 5 cents even in bulk.
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