
Spurred by Amazon, Supermarkets Try Swapping Cashiers for Cameras - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spurred-by-amazon-supermarkets-try-swapping-cashiers-for-cameras-11562491800?mod=rsswn
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tschwimmer
I tried out Amazon Go in SF and I have to say that I'm very impressed. It
doesn't even require a standalone app if you already have the Amazon app
downloaded. I walked in, scanned my phone, grabbed a sandwich and walked out.
It took 2 minutes and felt a lot less friction-y then buying something at a
convenience store, which admittedly was low friction to begin with.

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elwell
Yesterday I had a similar experience with a cafe in a smallish town (Malvern,
PA). However, instead of using an app system, they relied on the "honor
system". I would be curious as to their annual losses, and how that would vary
when in a metropolitan area such as SF.

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majewsky
We have a trust-based beverage PoS at our hackerspace. The bottle crates are
just standing there and everyone is trusted to pay into the cash desk next to
the crates when they take bottles out. Our weekly losses (i.e. bottles and
money not accounted for) average ~40€, with weekly revenue around 200-300€.
The losses are factored into the prices. Prices are comparable to or slightly
below convenience store levels.

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q3k
Is there a mechanism for IoUs / credit lines for members?

I've seen trust-based mate shops at hackerspaces around the world, and I've
been told that the ones that have a credit system (even one that's not
limited, checked, and that's not even authenticated) end up actually not
having any significant losses. Like, anything from a piece of paper with
people noting down unpaid mate purchases to things like android tablets with a
webapp letting you note that you put in a bill of N euros and taken out a
bottle of mate.

Friction from being able to pay right away seems to lead to "I'll pay extra
later" thinking, which makes people either forget or miscalculate how much
they actually owe.

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majewsky
Yes, each member account has a balance without any restrictions in either
direction, and it mostly works fine. At times, the negative balances pile up,
in which case I write a mail to the mailing list asking people to pay their
dues. Usually, the negative balances approximately cancel out the positive
balances, both at something like 1000 euros.

Also, when your balance is negative, after every purchase there is a big red
notification reminding you of that.

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imagetic
I'm sure this is a small subset of people/places, but our small local markets
seem to be doing very well in recent years. They are moving the opposite
direction. I personally like knowing my butchers name and getting sound advice
on purchases from real people.

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elwell
That interest has an inverse correlation with social anxiety; which I believe
will continue to rise with the rise in virtual experiences over real-world
ones.

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mirceal
I hope that everyone that is trying this out and/or is excited about the
technology is aware that they are basically giving away their biometric data.
The way you talk, your physical dimensions, your behavior, everything that
makes you you can now be monetized (if we’re lucky).

I know the same argument can be made for buying stuff online - but in the
physical world you cannot really change your appearance without ridiculous
costs/time involved.

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ncallaway
But...they same could be said of walking into a regular supermarket too.

Many supermarkets already have a large amount of CCTV inside of them. Some of
these are already mining the data for the concerns you describe (often without
the audio aspect).

What makes this worse than that?

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mirceal
yes. you are right. what makes a supermarket “better” is that their tech is
not yet there + you can in theory pay with cash making it harder to link your
identity with your characteristics.

we need strong privacy laws so that the penalties for collecting/abusing
biometric data is a strong deterrent for whoever does this kind kf thing.

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ncallaway
Yea, I'm absolutely onboard with privacy laws that make this kind of mass
biometric recognition illegal or subject to very strong constraints.

The point I (poorly) tried to raise wasn't: "well, grocery stores could do
this too, so it's not a problem". Rather, it was more: "shouldn't this be even
more alarming, given that it can already happen at most stores across the
country".

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WalterBright
For me, the source of friction is always the long wait for the cashier. And if
I forget something, another wait. I'm looking forward to just walking in and
walking out with my purchases.

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elwell
Why go to the grocery store at all?

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filoleg
To buy groceries.

I dont think you intended that, but your comment seems to imply that having
higher friction is an inherent experience of a grocery store, and that there
is no reason to go there otherwise.

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mattnewton
I think they were instead implying you could just have your groceries
delivered for a very low cost. I’ve used grocery deliveries from the chain
directly before, but they would sometimes make minor substitutions, like
between ice cream brands for instance, that I could not then eat because of
dietary restrictions. Returns / refunds were easy but it was still more of a
hassle than just showing up to the store, which is usually pretty hassle free
unless you pick an exceptionally bad time.

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filoleg
Delivery isn't a substitute for shopping on your own, it is just a completely
different experience, and I don't think they are meant to replace each other
any time soon. While shopping on your own with an automated checkout is
clearly just a slightly modified version of shopping on your own.

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2FACTORAUTH
I can see this being useful in France. I was basically accused several times
of being shoplifter. At one store they demanded to look inside my bag and then
zip-tied it shut. At another store they wanted to go through my bag at
checkout. It was all very rude and undignified.

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esotericn
Local supermarkets have cameras with blinking red lights and a real-time
screen watching you at the self-service checkout that you have to use because
there are 5 cashiers in a hypermarket vs. 40 when I were a small.

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unnouinceput
I wish them and amazon go all the best in the world but this will not fly at
all to be the common situation. It will always remain a novelty used by a few
locations in cities and that's all. And you wanna know why? Simple, who's
stopping the theft? Once this will go mainstream the theft will eat the profit
margins and they will revert to current situation.

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pat2man
No one is stopping the thieves today. I regularly see people walking out with
stolen items. Unless there is a security guard there, which an automated store
could still hire. Also the amazon stores make you scan your phone on the way
in, so they can prevent people who have shoplifted before from even entering.

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smileysteve
In the US, stopping someone can be difficult when it comes to legal liability.
There is a thin line between detaining someone and forcibly kidnapping
someone.

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tdy_err
E.g.: Theaters don’t allow entry without tickets.

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nobrains
In Dubai, Carrefour has a branch that allows you to scan the items with your
while you adding them to your trolley, so that in the end, you do not need to
do a full checkout and can just do the payment and walk out.

There is another Carrefour branch, which does not have the above option, but
allows you to give your trolley to the checkout counter, and just go home. In
30 minutes or so, you get the products delivered to your door, with the credit
card reader, so you can pay.

What would be really awesome, would be a merger of there two features, as
follows:

I walk around the supermarket scanning the items I need (without adding to
trolley, and lugging the trolley around). Then pay and walk out, and in 30
minutes the items are delivered to my house.

That would be cool, and the tech and systems are in place for that.

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cs02rm0
You can do that in the UK already too. Or self scan at a checkout. I think the
difference here is really that they're talking about using cameras instead of
scanning and it seems not even having a cashier as an option.

I think nearly half of people do some grocery shopping online these days, I
wonder if that's putting more pressure on supermarkets to reduce overheads
like cashiers. The lower end supermarkets seem to mostly go the other way -
with Aldi and Lidl not having self scan checkouts even other than trials.

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ank9
I believe instead of using sensors and camera with computer vision, what if
someone uses RFID systems for self checkout.

Implementing RFID would be cost effective as compared to implementing Amazon
Go based approach. Where you need to install sensors and camera installed!

RFID tags are the major cost, which can be solved with bulk purchases.

Decathlon has already deployed RFID based self checkout system!

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icebraining
How does that work? Can the checkout machine read the tags inside the bag? I'd
prefer if my groceries didn't advertise themselves as I walk down the street.

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ank9
Checkout machines will have RFID readers. When you place your bag inside RFID
reader, all tags will be read.

UHF based RFID readers are better since they have more than 1 meter of read
range.

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turtlebits
I think a big win for Supermarkets would be Square/Clover-like NFC payments
(ie. no interaction other than tapping your phone) as the Chip+PIN dance still
sucks.

Even places like Whole Food and 7-11 still require PIN + cashback + yes/no
prompts on NFC payments which IMO defeats the purpose.

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cavisne
This is a US only limitation. The rest of the world has long since moved to
Paypass. The terminals are the same (no Square needed) however the US refuses
to support it, i guess because of tipping.

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tssva
Based upon my experience with the supermarkets in my area they still haven't
mastered self-checkout technology. It doesn't instill confidence that they
will be able to deploy this in the near to medium term. I really don't have
much more confidence for the long term.

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TaylorAlexander
This trend to lower cost has downsides. My local Home Depot has become
horrible to visit. Last time I was there I had to wait 40 minutes for a piece
of hose to be cut from a reel. Workers in an adjacent aisle said they weren’t
authorized to cut the hose, and the one worker on shift who was authorized was
apparently busy. Once someone called for him it took ~15 minutes for him to
arrive followed by 15 minutes of him helping the one guy there before me. So
~30 minutes later he cut my 4 foot length of hose, then discovered there was
no SKU to scan for by-the-foot measurement. Another ten minutes passed of him
radioing for a SKU to give me on a slip of paper. I felt like I should not
have bothered, apparently the workers are all overworked or not permitted to
help.

Meanwhile at my local ACE hardware store they manage to have everything I need
in a MUCH smaller building, but they always have someone on hand if any help
is needed.

So I’d rather the shop cut costs in other ways, like use smaller buildings and
narrower aisles to save on rent. I like people.

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tanakachen
Maybe I’m an isolated case but I NEVER use self-checkout at Home Depot. The
reason is simple: if Home Depot believes it can lower costs by not hiring as
many cashiers, then I should get a discount by using the self-checkout.
Without such a discount I always insist a human cashier checks me out. Why
should I do extra work for Home Depot?

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p1necone
Self checkouts benefit you too. At least in supermarkets I always go for the
self checkouts because the line moves way faster than a regular one.

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bronco21016
I used to feel the same way until I began focusing on my diet and purchased
more produce. Self checkout is a nightmare for produce. They rarely have a bar
code which leads to a mystical hunt through the usually horribly slow UI.
Compare that to a person who has done it so many times they have the code
memorized for your apples and they can just punch it in quickly and keep
going. And don’t even get me started with how excruciatingly painful it is
when suddenly all of the machines need assistance and the one attendant can’t
be in 6 places at once.

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ceejayoz
This is a solved problem.

Our grocery store (Wegmans) has labelmaker scales in the produce department,
and the four or five digit code right next to the produce items. You bag it,
weigh it, and label it yourself.

Speeds up the human checkouts, too.

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bronco21016
This sounds like an excellent solution and perhaps I should let someone know
at my local Kroger. Maybe its just something I've overlooked while shopping.
Either way, I have a young child now so we mostly just use ClickList.

