Amazon Go grocery stores (maybe)

[ZenOps]

Greatly reduce the number of paid employees by getting rid of checkout staff. Advanced tracking on entry to store to discourage theft.

I can imagine they would also try to mechanize the shelf stackers as well.

[speedog]

Good for the 'eat out of the box' crowd I suppose.

[Feruk]

Originally posted by speedog
Good for the 'eat out of the box' crowd I suppose.

Exactly. Sounds like a great concept, but last I checked there are no trackers on apples.

[ZenOps]

Sure there is, there is that little sticker that tells you that its a #whatever pink lady or a #whatever macintosh.

It might cost less than half a cent to put a RFID tag if you are already going to put an identification sticker on the apple anyhow. Then you could just take the average weight, and pass the savings cost of a human cashier to make all apples less expensive to buy.

Putting a weight scale of the human walking in the door will also prevent people from stealing sacks of rice :P I believe they can estimate to about 2 pounds what a persons weight is when walking across a weighing pad. So no roasts in the trousers.

[sputnik]

So how hard could it possibly be to remove an RFID tag from an apple before leaving?

Neat idea. Unlikely to happen.

I remember being in high school when some guys I knew would steal CDs from HMV by removing the security tag with one of these.

[RealJimmyJames]

Stores already loose a significant percentage of inventory due to theft. I don't think this concept will actually see much worse theft.

If I have a bad experience at a grocery store, 100% of the time it's due to the cashier. Removing them from that transaction would increase my satisfaction noticeably.

[Thaco]

i saw this the other day... all i can say is

PLEASE PLEASE NOW PLEASE

I hate shopping because of lineups, bullshit sales tactics at the cashier and incompetent staff... if i could avoid all these, i'd be a happy man. (these are all the reasons i like click & collect)



and to those saying theft will be a problem, there is still staff, stocking shelves, and probably a ton of cameras with rent-a-cops monitoring them. hella cheaper than 10 cashiers

[revelations]

This is the next thing. Walmart is taking note.

Buy stock in Amazon. In 10 years they will team up with UBER and literally have groceries flown in via drones or with UBER drivers.

[Xtrema]

Unless that QR code on phone is generated and discarded on exit, I see a security problem.

The second is I would like to know what kind of sensors in involve to know you have remove something from the shelf. NFC? How would they guarantee that I don't get charged the lobster sub some dude next to me grabbed?

Interesting concept but in the end, you just replaced cashiers with security guards. And everything need to come in a box of some kind so it's really just a giant vending machine.

[RedDawn]

Originally posted by Xtrema
Unless that QR code on phone is generated and discarded on exit, I see a security problem.

The second is I would like to know what kind of sensors in involve to know you have remove something from the shelf. NFC? How would they guarantee that I don't get charged the lobster sub some dude next to me grabbed?

Interesting concept but in the end, you just replaced cashiers with security guards. And everything need to come in a box of some kind so it's really just a giant vending machine.

It's machine learning paired with computer vision. There's no tags or RFID. It knows what you look like and it knows what the item you're picking up is. Unless the dude next to you is wearing the exact same thing as you, the chance of mis-allocating the item to you are slim. On the off chance they are wearing the same thing as you, the ML system can trace from your hand, up your arm and back to your body to uniquely identify you.

The same machine learning system will also be able to identify unscanned customers entering the store and alert a security guard. Two security guards to monitor one store is still way cheaper than the 10-15 cashiers it currently takes.

[ZenOps]

The cost of the cameras has come down so low, that yes - they can literally put the equivalent of a thousand cameras in the store along with every single angle possible.

I think the cost of a cheap CCD sensor (used in $50 tablets nowadays) is something on the order of $2.

So sure, you could rip the label off - but even David Copperfield would probably get caught doing it.

Technically they would not need to stop you from stealing the first time, all they need to do is make note of who you are on entering (by phone or facial recognition) and simply ban you from entering the store the next time you want food. Link together the databases to places like Mcdonalds, and pretty soon - you won't be able to buy a burger without alerting the authorities.

That's probably the main argument against such stores, if you somehow get on the wrong side - you are really screwed.

[carson blocks]

People made the same theft arguments when self-checkouts came out and they seem to be working out fine. I'll bet any marginal increase in theft was paid for by not having a to pay an employee and all the associated hassle. The Amazon store with all the cameras and sensors should be way more reliable than the shitty self checkout machines with the scales that are calibrated once every never.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by carson blocks
People made the same theft arguments when self-checkouts came out and they seem to be working out fine.

Walmart tried this and cancel the project. Then the province goes $15/hr minimum wage and self checkout makes a comeback.

So whatever the loss is to theft for self checkout is less than the cost of of $15/hr minimum wage.

[Thaco]

Originally posted by Xtrema


Walmart tried this and cancel the project. Then the province goes $15/hr minimum wage and self checkout makes a comeback.

So whatever the loss is to theft for self checkout is less than the cost of of $15/hr minimum wage.

and then re-instated it..... (in some locations)

but who knows what their reasoning is, could be not related at all to "shrinkage"

all i can say is bring on the amazon style stores!