Spurred by Amazon, Supermarkets Try Swapping Cashiers for Cameras

https://www.wsj.com/articles/spurred-by-amazon-supermarkets-try-swapping-cashiers-for-cameras-11562491800?mod=rsswn

80 152 7 years ago

esotericn• 7 years ago

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.

tschwimmer2• 7 years ago

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.

perl4ever5• 7 years ago

Does the app show you what you're buying and what it costs before you exit?

tschwimmer2• 7 years ago

No, it does not. There was a lot of latency (~2 hours) before I saw what I was charged for.

masonic4• 7 years ago

If items aren't priced, that should be illegal in CA.

adrusi• 7 years ago

I've heard that the process for contesting charges is simple and high-trust.

didibus2• 7 years ago

You get a receipt after you exit. And from the receipt there's an option to notify of a mistake. I've never had to use it yet, and I haven't had a mistake happen yet so I can't comment on how smooth that would be.

thaumasiotes• 7 years ago

The obvious question now is what it tracks. Presumably if you pick up a sandwich and then put it down somewhere else in the store you shouldn't be charged for it. What happens if you walk in, pick up a sandwich, eat the sandwich, and leave?

yazaddaruvala• 7 years ago

Moving stuff is seamless. You are not charged.

Passing items between friends that used the same phone to get in is also seamless (I’ve never tried passing an item between two amazon accounts).

I believe there are weight sensors to counteract stuff like taking out half a sandwich and putting the rest back, but I’m not sure about this one.

There are definitely ways to cheat the system. But the tech is at a point where it is similar hassle/consequences to other petty shoplifting that happens across the world (the cameras can always be checked by a human in a post-mortem).

The reality is convenience store shopping is at a point where it is almost always better for the company and the customer with Amazon Go tech.

The bigger problems with the Amazon Go tech is, how do you scale it to a supermarket size, how do you get around or change regulations that a human needs to validate ID for alcohol, how do you auto-stock the place, how do you get away from needing a human for security guard / first aid reasons? Also I imagine it costs a lot to set up. How do you make this cheap enough to be financially worth the ROI?

chrisseaton4• 7 years ago

if you pick up a sandwich and then put it down somewhere else in the store

Why do people do this? Why can’t you put it back where you got it if you don’t want it any more?

xxxpupugo• 7 years ago

Amazon Go stores are cashier-less but not staff-less, there are people watching.

elwell3• 7 years ago

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.

dontbenebby2• 7 years ago

Especially if they save enough in personnel costs to cover the shrink. Maybe throw in some CCTV to catch egregious offenders.

morpheuskafka• 7 years ago

That's cool, but that would be a hassle for groceries if you had to manually add up all your purchases. The app allows you to combine security with customer convenience.

majewsky2• 7 years ago

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.

Camillo• 7 years ago

and how that would vary when in a metropolitan area such as SF.

I've spoken with grocery store clerks in SF (at major chains like Walgreens) who were concerned that their stores might be closed because of truly excessive losses due to constant shoplifting. Of course the shrinkage is factored into the price, but you can only raise prices so much before it starts eating into your sales.

BTW, when I visited the Amazon Go in SF it actually seemed to have more staff present than a regular grocery store of comparable size.

Waterluvian• 7 years ago

Do you guys have RFID credit cards? I'm not sure how much more convenient it needs to be than an item scan and a tap of a card.

austhrow743• 7 years ago

Item scanning can take a while, as well as queuing for it. Tapping card vs chip and pin is a tiny time saving compared to the whole checking out process.

tjr225• 7 years ago

Ugh. I will _always_ prefer friction to my own convenience if it means some person can have a job. I could care less about efficiency and I could care less about some shareholder's bottom line. Maybe I would feel differently if we lived in a country that would actually take care of people who didn't have money or opportunity.

mazesc2• 7 years ago

Do you send email?

lanrh18362• 7 years ago

It isn’t as if there’s no staff. Someone still needs to restock, clean, answer customer questions, etc.

didibus2• 7 years ago

There's still one person to help at the door, one person to check ID for the alchohol section, a security guard, and clerks that fill up the aisles, refill the shelves, put things back in their place, etc.

Also, they have a kitchen attached to them, and prepare food in it, so they have kitchen staff for that and all the delivery surrounding it.

They also now need to hire engineers to work on the system, maintain and repair it, and service workers to setup and maintain the infrastructure needed in the store.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure the whole things turns out way more expansive for them than hiring a few cashiers. I think the idea is that the extra convenience given to the customers mean that customers will prefer to shop at Amazon Go instead of elsewhere, and that might be worth the extra cost to grow the marketshare.

TulliusCicero• 7 years ago

I will _always_ prefer friction to my own convenience if it means some person can have a job.

No you won't. Our standard of living is built on automation in a million ways, big and small.

You're only actually opposed to recent, more visible examples. Why?

WalterBright• 7 years ago

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.

elwell3• 7 years ago

Why go to the grocery store at all?

barbecue_sauce• 7 years ago

I'm not the original commenter, but I like looking at, touching, and picking out my own food. I don't think I will ever get groceries delivered.

filoleg2• 7 years ago

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.

threezero• 7 years ago

I’d much rather not go to the store, but I’ve had too many grocery deliveries with bad produce, dented cans, etc. Ifbthere was someway I could remotely choose my fruits and vegetables and make sure there were no other damaged items, I’d never go the grocery store again.

Spooky233• 7 years ago

Speaking for myself, I don’t want what you typically get from Amazon and the like - old products near expiration, shitty produce, etc at a premium price.

Personally, my family is going in a different direction. Commodity products at Aldi, different stuff at Trader Joe’s and speciality products at specialty retail.

It’s cheaper, better quality and less time than navigating a 150k sqft store.

imagetic• 7 years ago

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.

elwell3• 7 years ago

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.

milesokeefe• 7 years ago

You can still have a butcher in a cashier-less store.

TaylorAlexander2• 7 years ago

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.

tanakachen2• 7 years ago

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?

p1necone2• 7 years ago

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.

function_seven2• 7 years ago

I consider the checkout stands to be the modern equivalent of elevators. Elevators used to require an operator to ask you for your floor, to manage the queue of calls, and determine an optimal order of trips up and down the shaft.

Then elevators got smarter and people now directly interface with the system.

With checkouts, it looks the same. I have a few pieces of hardware I want to buy. I can either stand in line and wait until someone scans them for me and tells me the total, or I can just scan them myself and pay.

It usually much faster to go through the self-checkout (especially with Home Depot's new set up. Just a handheld scanner and a huge touchscreen). For those times that it isn't (either a line of people, or unusual items that need special handling), then I'll go with the regular checkout.

To me, the extra work is in waiting for someone else to do what I can do faster and easier. This is similar to how gas pumping works in Oregon and New Jersey. No thanks, I'll pump my own gas please.

dclusin• 7 years ago

It's one line feeding 4-6 self-serve registers instead of one line feeding one register. I think most people would prefer shorter time in checkout vs. having someone else scan their goods for them. It's not like the checkout process is some herculean task that is only doable by trained professionals.

reaperducer2• 7 years ago

I agree. I never use self check out. For the reasons you state, plus I don't want to contribute to some low skill person losing the only job they'll ever be able to hold.

I'm not so self-important to think that I can't stand in line at a checkout for three minutes.

lucb1e3• 7 years ago

By that logic you should litter because nobody pays you to use trash bins. The exact argument you use, I use as an example of American stupidity (or perhaps you'd call it an American viewpoint). You want faster self check out or not? You want them to be able to lower prices across the board? No? Alrighty, keep ruining it for everyone out of some misguided righteousness that you should be paid for it.

dgzl• 7 years ago

I wonder if it has anything to do with rising minimum wage?

trophycase• 7 years ago

Far more to do with the decreasing costs of automation than minimum wage. These jobs will be automated, depressing wages only delays the inevitable.

kevin_thibedeau2• 7 years ago

Just cut it yourself.

Stratoscope2• 7 years ago

Which they don't let you do, perhaps for "insurance" reasons, and if you do it, you won't have a slip with a code on it to check out with.

Stratoscope2• 7 years ago

I don't suppose that was East Palo Alto Home Depot, and either Menlo Park Hardware or Hassett Hardware in Palo Alto?

Those two Ace Hardware stores are amazing! They have so much stuff in such a small place, and always have helpful people.

TaylorAlexander2• 7 years ago

I’m on the coast. Home Depot in Daly City and Ace in Pacifica or Hasset Hardware in Half Moon Bay. Similar breed of shops and well stocked!

2FACTORAUTH• 7 years ago

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.

unnouinceput7• 7 years ago

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.

pat2man• 7 years ago

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.

smileysteve• 7 years ago

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.

foota• 7 years ago

Go stores have people watching, but it's much easier to have 1 to 2 people watching than it is to have a bunch of cashiers

BurningFrog2• 7 years ago

Hundreds of cameras and sensors are stopping the theft.

unnouinceput7• 7 years ago

Really? Currently humans are stopping theft. Try to catch a flock of thieves that can roam unstopped in your store and rob it blindly with masks on. Until the police will arrive they are gone and you're left with cameras recording masks of dead presidents eating your profit margins. A few of these incidents and you'll see humans popping back in those stores in no time.

Spooky233• 7 years ago

That solution is easy — they won’t put stores in areas where the shrink is too challenging. No Amazon Go in the hood.

Apple has done the same thing forever with mobile checkout. They make it work by crazy margins, plus a customer base and voluntary compliance.

Retail employees have limited ability to do anything about shrink other than increase friction anyway. I worked at a big electronics retailer in the 90s that would get robbed blind, and there was very little you could do. The only exception was when a gang of fake Asian tourists raided the place, and we “helped” by being interrogated by the police, because they suspected than an employee tipped the gang off about inventory.

unnouinceput7• 7 years ago

Exactly my point. Stores do exists in the hood today, don't they? So this will stay a novelty only in few places throughout the cities, never gonna replace the existing style of stores.

cavisne2• 7 years ago

The Amazon Go stores are controlled access, you need to swipe your app to get past the gate.

There is also (at least at the original one) plenty of staff, just they are helping people through the gates and restocking shelves.

You could still shoplift with a fake Amazon account, but this would be way above the effort level most shoplifters go to, especially to steal a sandwich.

unnouinceput7• 7 years ago

So who is stopping one dude in the pack have the app, some credit in it, swipe to open the door of the store, and it's gonna be followed by his 20 henchmen to robe the store blind while 2 of them will just block the door altogether to stay open?. 1000 USD iPhone X multiplied by at least 20 for each of them multiplied by 20 dudes it will make a nice 400k USD dent in under a minute. Have this happening at a few of these stores and you can see how that profit margin is going down the drain real fast.

scarejunba• 7 years ago

Interesting. Have you been to San Francisco supermarkets? Try the Safeways along Mission St. if you're there. People will walk in, grab liquor off the shelves, and walk out. It relies on people recognizing and stopping them. And that's something the Go store is capable of doing because it has staff at entry.

unnouinceput7• 7 years ago

They want to get rid of staff altogether, that's their final goal with this style of stores. My point was this will never happen because once you remove humans from equation, theft will skyrocket

faissaloo• 7 years ago

You highly underestimate how easy it is to shoplift.

turtlebits• 7 years ago

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.

mr_toad• 7 years ago

They have contactless (phone/Visa etc) payments in New Zealand supermarkets for payments under $80 (about $53 USD). It only saves about 30 seconds though, not really a big deal unless you’re only buying a couple of items.

cavisne2• 7 years ago

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.

lanrh18362• 7 years ago

This just depends on whether a specific store has upgraded their POS. At every grocery store I go to in SF, including Whole Foods, Safeway, and Costco, every register supports NFC/Apple Pay.

Even better than Apple Pay IMO is NFC-enabled cards. Love that US issuers like Chase and Amex have finally started rolling those out.

lucb1e3• 7 years ago

I've paid by card in eight European countries and there were no prompts on the payment terminal other than my PIN (which I'm fine entering). More recently (in four or five countries) I've paid contactless which requires no pin under 25 euros. Also no additional prompts. Seems to be a thing of the USA, similar to lagging behind with magstripes?

mirceal2• 7 years ago

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.

ncallaway2• 7 years ago

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?

stefco_• 7 years ago

I suspect that this sort of project requires them to develop tools that significantly lower the barrier to performing automated biometric data gathering. It is also easier for them to link your body to your digital presence and identity since you need to use your Amazon account. A store using this sort of tech could therefore much more easily monetize your biometrics.

In any case, we desperately need regulations to govern government/corporate use of individuals' biometrics.

mirceal2• 7 years ago

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.

tssva• 7 years ago

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.

nobrains• 7 years ago

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.

cs02rm0• 7 years ago

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.

seszett• 7 years ago

In many places here in France you can just order online on Carrefour's (or one of the other supermarkets) website and get your stuff delivered to your house, so that seems like more or less what you're looking for, unless you really want to scan physical items yourself rather than online.

Although what most people use is actually the reverse, you order the items online and go fetch them with your car, an employee puts the bags in your trunk and you're on your way. You can either pay online or on site.

grandmczeb3• 7 years ago

Some Walmarts in the US also have the first option you mention (scanning your items as you shop). I think it’s neat, but the Amazon Go stores are still way more convenient.

ank92• 7 years ago

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!

icebraining• 7 years ago

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.

ank92• 7 years ago

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.

Nasrudith2• 7 years ago

Attribuitation is one potential issue/ edge case source that I wonder how they solve. If two people enter/leave the check out area at the same time the "overlap" could get it confused. Machine vision could potentially pair better. Theoretically triangulation could help some but it brings to mind testing it by doing things like having two people walk side by side, pick up a bottle and drape it over th other's shoulders and seeing if it judges them as buying the opposite.

Spurred by Amazon, Supermarkets Try Swapping Cashiers for Cameras

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