Amazon Is This The Way We Will Shop

[emmie]

in the future, no queues that sounds good to me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42769096

[emmie]

with the expansion of Amazon won't this put others out of business, not to mention they have opened an Amazon book store in NY. Very interesting piece when you get into it.

[murraymints]

Bit scary !

[emmie]

sounds it, but this im sure is the way we will all have to shop, does seem a tad futuristic, the technology is moving so fast its hard to keep up with it.

[Tuvok]

No phone so how could I shop there?

I see they have encountered stuff being removed and put back on wrong shelf!

[murraymints]

Ultimately there will be no shops at all...everything on line....

[emmie]

those with no phones, and they must be few of those now, can't do it i suppose, and putting things back on the wrong shelf needs to be addressed.

[emmie]

which is all the more surprising that they are opening shop all over the place.

[EDDIE51]

Tesco in the UK already have a similar system. You pick up a scanner as you go in and scan the barcode on the items as you put them in your basket. At the moment you then pay at a dedicated till before leaving. It only needs the addition of reading & verifying your card details onto the scanner and the system will be fully automatic.

[Old_Geezer]

Looks awful. No service. All a case of 'you're not important to us so do it yourself'. Would avoid like the plague.

[youngmafbog]

Other supermarkets do it too Eddie.

OG, if enough people want to pay for a 'service' then shops as they are will remain open. Thing is though the service is usually awful and most dont want to pay for it.

[Buenchico]

I like the idea.

I'll already queue for several minutes to go through a self-service checkout rather than go a vacant staffed one. The very last thing I want when shopping is any form of human interaction. The sooner we get rid of all staffed checkouts the better.

[cassa333]

Where are the people to restock the shelves? What happens if someone comes in with a stolen phone? What happens if someone hasn't a phone but takes something off the shelf such as if I go shopping with a mate who has a phone and I don't?

[naomi24]

Stores will obviously be staffed - just not by people who sit on tills.

[woofgang]

I am not sure why this would get me to go back to a physical shop. I do most (almost all) of my shopping online and get it delivered to my door.

[New Judge]

"No service."

As youngmaf mentioned, no service is precisely what you get in most shops. Staff are too busy talking to their colleagues about their forthcoming holidays to bother with tiresome customers. I visited a well known supermarket chain only yesterday (I won't name it but it begins with 'T' and ends with 'O'). I only had half a dozen items. The checkout girl did not acknowledge my presence at all, preferring instead to rabbit to her colleague on the adjacent till. When she'd finished she looked at me:

"Well how much do you want then?" I asked her.
"Oh, er [looks at till display which I cannot see because it's turned round towards her]..£8.29. I fought you were payin' by card."
"How would you know that? You barely know I'm here at all."
She turned away. I imagine most people in that position would have been embarassed, but I don't think she did embarassment.
She grudgingly handed me my receipt and I left with "I'm terribly sorry to have interrupted your morning by coming here to do my shopping. Next time I'll use the self-service checkout [which I hate because they don't work properly]. Hopefully by then you and your mate next door will have been handed your cards and you can spend all day every day rabbitting to each other."

Shops like that are not long for this world - I'm pleased to say

[youngmafbog]

Many years ago people had their stuff delivered but it changed to going out shopping so the same thing could happen again.

Personally I too have been mail order and now online shopping for many years since I hate people.

[emmie]

did anyone read the piece, if so its not foolproof yet, they are still trialling it but this looks to be the future.

[emmie]

NJ
could you not have complained to the management, i know i would have.

[Kromovaracun]

It's quite obvious that such an establishment hires far, far fewer people than a conventional supermarket does. It or something like it is probably the future, yes. A far more credible vision than drone-delivery.

Over my lifetime I fully expect automation to advance to such an extent that it is no longer possible to employ 30-40% of the population, perhaps even more.. Indeed, this is already starting to happen. Unless we want society to collapse we need to figure out some way to run an economy in which not everyone can be employed.

[emmie]

krom
even automation needs people to control it surely