SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the who-is-going-to-ask-if-I-want-fries? dept.
72 years after [Clarence Saunders] attempted to patent his idea, advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are making the dream of a worker-free store a reality. And American cashiers may soon be checking out.
A recent analysis by Cornerstone Capital Group suggests that 7.5m retail jobs – the most common type of job in the country – are at "high risk of computerization", with the 3.5m cashiers likely to be particularly hard hit.
Another report, by McKinsey, suggests that a new generation of high-tech grocery stores that automatically charge customers for the goods they take – no check-out required – and use robots for inventory and stocking could reduce the number of labor hours needed by nearly two-thirds. It all translates into millions of Americans' jobs under threat.
(Score: 2) by bryan on Thursday August 17 2017, @07:05PM (4 children)
Around here, the grocery stores all seem to keep 8+ self checkout lanes open and only 1 traditional lane open. I suppose the shoppers that want restricted items (tobacco, etc.) still need to use the traditional lane, but everyone else just checks their own items out already.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:25PM (3 children)
Self-checkout works well until you have more than a dozen items or so and/or actually buy produce (or dry goods or whatever) that needs to be weighed with codes entered and/or buy things with coupons that never seem to scan right (the in-store coupons for a "manager's special" or "quick sale" for a few dollars off are often the worst) AND happen to shop somewhere that doesn't have a machine that throws a fit if you don't deliver the item into the bagging area in under 0.5 seconds... oh, and aren't buying any very light or very large items. Or... I don't know, huge numbers of things.
In many of the above scenarios it is POSSIBLE to self-checkout, but for example having someone who might actually know produce codes or be able to navigate them faster through experience can be really helpful if you buy any significant amount of produce. I made the mistake several weeks ago of trying to go through self-checkout with about 20 items, including maybe 5 produce items and a few other things that didn't want to scan right (store deals, etc.), at a store I was unfamiliar with. I'm certain I spent at least three times as long there as I would have had I just waited behind the one person checking out at the cashier in the next aisle.
I used to shop at a big grocery store that had great prices, so families would come from a distance to shop. The majority of customers had carts that were at least half full, and many were often full or even overflowing. Self-checkout definitely doesn't work there either.
On the other hand, I've been to plenty of stores like you mention, where it seems one or two cashiers is plenty, because the typical person is only buying a few items.
(Score: 2) by bryan on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:21PM (2 children)
Agreed! Half of my frustration with self checkout lines are their insistence to "weigh" an item in the bagging area after you scan it. I normally bring my reusable bags with me, and even the slight weight of placing these cloth bags in the bagging area is enough to freak the machines out and scream "Remove item from bagging area!!!" Heavy items, like milk/juice/soda, will also throw off all future readings and don't always fit very well anyway.
RFID tags, needed for the Amazon style no-checkout-at-all method, seem a little overkill IMO. Are you really going to slap one of these big tags on a banana? Practically all cardboard boxes already have perfectly acceptable barcodes already. Simply remove the bagging area weight-check and the existing self check out lines will be much nicer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @01:42AM
> even the slight weight of placing these cloth bags in the bagging area is enough to freak the machines out
This one has a solution -- scan item, put on bagging platform (but not in a bag). Once everything is scanned and paid, then move items from platform into your cloth bags.
I do this with my small-wheel "shopping" bicycle that I bring into the store (instead of shopping cart)--items are all put into the bike bags, after I'm done paying.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday August 18 2017, @03:55AM
The BBC had a story a couple of weeks ago about laser-tattooing grocer codes on avocados...