from the desperate-people-do-desperate-things dept.
People Are Making Bots to Snatch Whole Foods Delivery Order Time Slots:
Social distancing and stay-home orders have led to booming demand for grocery delivery services. In some big cities, people report not being able to find an open delivery time slot for days or weeks at a time. And now Motherboard has found a series of bots that automatically give some people an upper hand when limited delivery time slots are available on Amazon Fresh or Wholefoods.
A slew of developers have made bots and other tools that, in some cases, automatically hunt for a free delivery slot, grab it, and then complete the user's food order, making sure they have a much better chance of buying food before other people snatch up the slot. While some of the developers told Motherboard they designed their bots to help those in need, such as senior citizens who may need to stay inside as exposure to the coronavirus could be more serious for them, others are dealing with the ethical issue of releasing a tool that can clearly be abused, by allowing those who can figure out how to use a technical tool to buy food while others go without.
[...] Data scientist Pooja Ahuja publicly released her own bot a few weeks ago, which checks for a free delivery slot on Wholefoods or Amazon Fresh. Her tool goes a step further though, and can also checkout automatically.
"You just have to run the bot once, and as soon as there is a delivery slot available, it secures it for you, and completes the entire process through checkout," Ahuja told Motherboard in an email.
[...] "Yes, it's an unfair advantage over others who aren't tech-savvy but may still need to purchase items urgently."
"Me and my wife were trying to order stuff off Amazon Fresh but finding an available slot was near to impossible. This made me build the bot and share it with others so they can use it too," Bryan Gaikwad, who developed a script for finding delivery slots and released the tool publicly, told Motherboard in an email. Adrian Hertel told CNBC his own tool is designed for a similar purpose.
[...] In response to whether he believed his tool may put less tech-savvy people at a disadvantage, Gaikwad added in an email, "That was not my intention as I mentioned it was just a project I built to test the concept. I [am] willing to take my source code down if needed." After the publication of this piece, it appears Gaikwad removed the code from his Github page; the tool repository now returns an error.
Other developers don't appear to see the ethical quandary with releasing such tools, though. When asked if she was worried that people who aren't in serious need for her auto checkout bot may still use it just to get ahead of others, Ahuja told Motherboard, "What I've noticed with the rigorous testing is that, many delivery slots do open up over the day for same day delivery. Even if someone did use the bot to want to get ahead of people in need, more slots will open up for those who need it, and the bot can help out them as well. One way or the other we can help reducing the number of people stepping out."
Consider those who have limited access to transportation and who may live in a food desert. What if it were your parents or a loved one. As more bots come into play and make it even harder for others... where will this lead to? What happens in a month — or six?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @09:34PM (2 children)
Seriously? Gaikwad? This is a joke article, right? Is he from Gay Bay?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @11:02PM (1 child)
You rip on Gaikwad, but give a pass to Pooja Ahuja?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @11:46PM
Everyone needs a little pooja, don't they?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 23 2020, @09:47PM (13 children)
The next time someone wants to destroy the gig economy, it might be worth remembering their role in making the present state of affairs better. Deliveries are ideal for gig economy contractors. There's nothing special about who the grocery or restaurant is. They can pick up food anywhere and expand those delivery slots on short notice. And it's ideal for people who want to work in short spurts or around a main job.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @12:18AM (11 children)
The gig economy only exists because companies are allowed to use it as an end run around normal laws and regulations that are in place to protect workers. The fact that amoral crackpots like yourself choose not to understand that is largely irrelevant.
One of the big issues with this is that it's impossible for stores to compete with the cheap labor. A grocery store that wants to have a delivery service has to pay the workers minimum wage, at a minimum, pay the business side of the social security and medicare taxes, unemployment insurance, accident insurance, any maintenance on the vehicles and various other costs of providing the service. With gig economy "jobs" they can put virtually all of that on the worker, many of whom don't have other options.
Personally, I work for a grocery chain that's been spending a lot of money hiring people and buying gear to provide pick up service. It's expensive, but the quality that the customer gets is much higher. On top of that, there's real savings as a result of efficiency gains. I see the gig economy workers coming in and they're not bad people, but they're also not equipped to work their way through the store in the most efficient method possible. That will always be the case with workers that do shopping at different chains or even just different stores. They aren't going to know where everything is or whether an item is out of stock. I look at my handheld and I know a ton about what needs to be done to minimize the shopping time. I would assume that's the case for people doing similar work at other chains as it's just so obvious. That's not something that's ever going to be possible with an outside contractor, regardless of pay, as companies don't want to provide that data to 3rd parties, they're going to use that data to get as many people shopping with them as possible.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 24 2020, @12:24AM (10 children)
Like customers need food, but it's a huge hassle to navigate a bunch of different delivery and pickup policies to get that food when a gig contractor who works whenever they feel like it can just do that. ]
And I agree that there's quite a bit of labor law that needs to be worked around (mandating benefits for a particularly grotesque example), but sounds like you don't see that as a feature for some weird reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @12:43AM (9 children)
Honestly, this is the 21st century, ordering food online isn't very hard, for the most part, the sites work just like any other ecomerce site, right now you have to schedule the delivery/pickup no matter where you go and what service you use as there's just not enough workers to get that all done as quickly as people want.
My personal suspicion, as somebody working in the industry, is that any gig type laborers are probably going to get pushed out of the portion of the service where they're actually filling orders. Right now, they're able to undercut the cost of a business doing it, but probably not for much longer. It's time consuming, they aren't typically trained to know a ripe melon and may not be able to tell the difference between parsley, cilantro or Italian parsley if the tags been damaged or removed and definitely won't know the most efficient way to shop through the store. And that's even before taking into account optimizations that can be made based upon inventory management systems and having a small group of people shopping the same store dozens of times a day.
They may be around in the future, picking up orders that have already been filled, but even with that, there's efficiencies that can be gained by bundling up orders coming and going to similar neighborhoods or having short distance delivery drivers like you often see with smaller take out restaurants or pizza places.
Inevitably, when fully automated delivery vehicles become available that will be the complete end to this kind of job. I suspect that the grocery stores and the like would wind up just doing their own deliveries with the workers being restricted to the areas that computers aren't very good at, namely identifying and picking fresh produce and the best meat on offer.
That being said, I do see a medium term market for businesses that service a number of restaurants and stores that are too small to be able to justify having their own delivery drivers and having them pool in on a few non-professional drivers could make sense, even if they pay them a decent wage. I'd consider paying minimum wage, even without benefits for those working part time to be reasonable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 24 2020, @12:50AM (2 children)
Your personal suspicion should consider what happens to restaurants and groceries that don't have a full blown internet-based delivery service. I've seen several businesses that just expect customers to work through Grubhub, for example, rather than set up their own system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @01:00AM (1 child)
There are probably some that do, but most of those are businesses where they're getting their customers primarily walking in or calling in the order for pick up. They are most certainly not counting on a 3rd party that's not under contract for their business to remain viable.
For every one of those, there's also likely ones that don't want to have their food delivered by 3rd parties and to have to deal with the headaches associated with that. When things work as intended, there's little issue, but when there's a 3rd party delivering, there's no quality control by the restaurant after the meal leaves the building. If it takes longer than it should to deliver the food and it winds up cold, then they get the bad review, even if it was the drivers fault for trying to do too much in the trip or trying to deliver to an address that's too far away.
Plus, businesses that do want delivery service but don't/can't set one up are far better off getting a 3rd party under contract to handle that in some mutually agreeable fashion than to hope that a 3rd party doesn't screw up their reputation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 24 2020, @01:35PM
So you claim. I view it rather as "any port in a storm".
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday April 24 2020, @12:57AM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @01:09AM (4 children)
Yes, and that's why chains that offer the service have been scaling their capacity to try and help meet demand. I can't be too specific as it's a trade secret, but any chain that's offering pickup or delivery service right now is doing what they can to scale it up. Whether that means adding additional equipment and personnel, streamlining the process or expanding to other locations, businesses know that this is a problem, we're acutely aware and it's getting better.
Having 3rd party shoppers isn't easily scalable and there's going to be a limit in terms of how efficiently they can shop and which hours they shop. With in house order fulfillment,the process can be done virtually 24 hours a day if need be, subject to having people willing to do the work and items being in stock.
Probably the biggest problem is that as food processing facilities open and close due to outbreaks, we're seeing significant shortage of certain items. When this is handled in house, there's flexibility in how that's handled, whether the order gets substituted or not and how the substitution is handled is up the the chain, the app services have extremely limited options compared with in house fulfillment.
Lastly, and this is a big deal to people ordering, there's often times no tipping involved and what you pay is often a flat rate based entirely on the cost of the items + a fixed service fee. When you place the order, you know that it won't cost more than X amount of money. Whether service is good or bad, you're not on the hook for a tip.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 24 2020, @01:31AM (3 children)
The key word in that salad being "trying".
To who? There presently seems to be some limits to how many people can be in a store or waiting outside a restaurant, but it's pretty high. After all, there was more than adequate capacity before covid. And the gig providers have a much weaker scaling problem than individual groceries and restaurants do.
And most of those substitutions won't be accepted by customers anyway without direct approval.
Sure, that is an advantage, when you can get through. But when you place the order, you already know that it won't cost more than a certain amount for good service, nor less than a certain amount for bad service, and that tipping for service was more important to you than predictability of pricing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @01:58AM (2 children)
There's no word salad there. Scaling these things is not as easy as flipping on a switch. It takes time to locate enough people to allow for the systems to scale.
3rd party shoppers is just not something that scales very well. The way those businesses have been run, counts on having people that are willing to work for peanuts. Right now, unemployment is paying $15 an hour in stimulus money on top of the normal unemployment money. Taking a gig like this, potentially messes with unemployment benefits and requires a car on top of being willing/able to take the risk of exposure. In other words, People would be potentially giving up the better part of $20 an hour in order to take these jobs. Plus the people who were working these jobs as a side hussle in many cases don't have the income from their regular job, which makes it likely that even the pool of workers they had, is going to be tough to retain.
As far as the approval goes, obviously, approval is necessary. But, relying on untrained shoppers makes it less likely that a suitable substitution will be offered and they may not have the time or inclination to do things like have the meat department package the desired amount of meat to more closely fill the requested order.
Obviously, getting through is important, but as I've said, pretty much all the major chains are working to scale the service to meet demand. It's like all the toilet paper shortages, if you don't like the shortage, there are businesses currently working to address the problem, it's just not as simple as flipping a switch. You need more personnel and equipment. And those 3rd party services aren't the kind of easy solution that you're suggesting. They have a much harder time scaling as they can really only do it by getting more employees, there's little they can do to improve efficiency and they're a lot more expensive. Some of the chains around here are advertising free pickup service.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday April 24 2020, @06:26AM
Large Australian supermarkets offer online shopping, with pick up or delivery.
Delivery is picked at the warehouse, not the local store, so there (in non-Covid-19 times), is more likelihood that the requested item will be available.
Both Woolworths [woolworths.com.au] and Coles [coles.com.au] allow shoppers to permit substitutions on a per-item basis.
The pickers and delivery drivers all work for the company. Any availability issues are communicated prior to delivery. Also, you can select your delivery time before you start your order, and it remains available for a few hours, to allow you to complete your shop (So you don't find it has 'gone' before your finish and pay)
Also, the delivery driver doesn't get a tip, they just get paid for doing their job.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 24 2020, @11:52AM
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday April 24 2020, @11:27PM
The gig economy is dying. Delivery gig workers are demanding and getting hazard pay, mandatory tips, and other benefits, including being treated with the same benefits as employees.
Why work at a less than minimum wage gig when $15 an hour is now the bare minimum that companies offer in terms of minimum wage because supply and demand means that $16-$20 for what used to be minimum wage jobs is now reality.
As one example, a few months ago, an orderly would make $14 an hour, The government set it to $21 and up to help meet demand. Plus benefits.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @10:03PM (4 children)
Looks like poetic justice to me. Back in high school the jocks cut lines, billied and were generally good at keeping nerds away from x (where x is something desirable).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 23 2020, @10:08PM (3 children)
Odd. You see the world as consisting of jocks and nerds? That's all? And, this is your opportunity to get even with the jocks? I'm not sure whether I should recommend professional help, or that you just get out more. You've missed out on somewhere between 75% and 85% of the real world.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @10:25PM
What does the real world have to do with Pelosi's ice cream parlor? [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @10:53PM (1 child)
> ...or that you just get out more.
Parent here, note that the whole point of this is that *no one* is getting out more these days. I'm going out ~once a week for grocery shopping and not much else.
I didn't write these bots, some developers (nerds) did. Whether or not they thought about it, they are competing for a scarce resource which means there are winners and losers. We've gotten spoiled by grocery store "plenty" for so long that "scarcity" is something new. I was just observing the overall effect this might have, and picked nerds and jocks, seems like you might get the high school reference which was a joke.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday April 24 2020, @11:17PM
Most people with dogs get out several times a day, no problem. And with everyone else staying indoors, we've got the sidewalks and streets pretty much to ourselves. Even the idiots who illegally ride their (mostly stolen, no lights, no reflectors, no helmets) bikes on sidewalks are mostly in hiding.
And most crime is down. You'd think with everyone wearing a mask crime would be up, but it's hard to make a getaway by blending into the crowd when there are no crowds. Or stealing from cars in crowded shopping centre parking lots when shopping centres are closed, and the big box grocery retailers have lineups of people outside who will see a thief going from car to car.
Throw in lower noise, less pollution, and a slower pace of life and what's not to like?
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anotherblackhat on Thursday April 23 2020, @11:01PM (5 children)
What exactly is a "fair" advantage?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday April 23 2020, @11:43PM
That's easy: Advantages for me are fair, advantages for you are so unfair. Kids express this opinion regularly, adults are smarter so they don't express it but just think it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @12:22AM (2 children)
TBH, this is Wholefoods, so really, who cares about the wealthy people screwing each other out of appointment times, this isn't like normal grocery stores where normal people buy normal groceries. If they were doing that with normal stores where the people shopping there are doing so because it's literally the only place they can afford to shop, that would be different.
The local grocery chains that have delivery or pick up service are running way behind normal due to the spike in demand as people try to avoid physically going inside to shop. Consequently, most chains have been working on ways of expanding delivery and pick up options in order to allow those that have no other option to avoid having to physically come in. It wouldn't surprise me if in areas that are particularly hard hit, if there could be bans on non-employees going inside at all to limit exposure. The employees needed to serve the need would be relatively large, but could more easily space themselves out and run through the grocery lists much more quickly than customers would. And most of the staff wouldn't ever need to be within a dozen feet of each other.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Kitsune008 on Friday April 24 2020, @12:47AM (1 child)
I don't think a lack of large employees will be a problem currently in the USA. ;-)
Yes, I know you meant a 'large number of employees', but I could not help myself. :-)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @01:12AM
Nope, I meant that. You need the largest employees you can get for if we have to resort to cannibalism when the food supply runs out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @02:08AM
The Unfair Advantage is an excellent book, if you like racing car drivers,
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1310615.The_Unfair_Advantage [goodreads.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @04:37PM
This whole fiasco is caused by the delivery sites building their sites incorrectly.
Compare a grocery delivery to a regular Amazon order.
Grocery delivery: I pick my items, then I have to pick a specific day and time of day for the delivery to happen.
Amazon: I pick my items, and buy them. Amazon picks when to pack, when to ship, and the actual arrival day/time is indeterminate until the package gets close enough to home to be on the final leg of delivery.
What needs to change, to accommodate the load, is the delivery sites. Instead of asking the customer to pick a time/date, and only having 50 slots available at any given moment, just assign each customer to the next available slot, even if that slot is three weeks away. Customer still gets to purchase, but no need for 'bots' to grab limited delivery slots. The difference is the customer does not get to pick 'when' (which is causing the current problem).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @08:56PM
After all, CAPTCHAs are evil and stuff. Can't have stuff like that. Better to just bow to this kind of thing.