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Comment by mistersquid | Hacker News Reader

This makes me wonder why physical retail stores don't follow Apple's approach by developing an app so shoppers can self-check out.

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The app would likely be more expensive to develop and maintain than hiring a few seasonal part-timers per store (2000 people at, let's face it, minimum wage for a month is about $4M that immediately converts to sales numbers just by being conscious enough to operate a register - that's cheaper than ~10 software devs in America (at least two of which are specialists - iOS/Android devs), a manager, an office, their equipment and their benefits packages that takes a year to 18-months to produce anything at all). Maybe outsourcing it would be cheaper... but even then, your conversion rate is going to be lower than just hiring a damned cashier.

And apparently B&N was against even spending for that, even during heavy sales periods. If I were a shareholder before I wouldn't be after reading this news - I'd be going and buying Amazon stock. And a lot of this explains why Amazon has been crushing Wal-Mart - people are just done with going to stores and waiting in lines, looking around at empty cashier stations in frustration when they can point, click, and have something on their doorstep the next day with less effort.

Of all the criticisms one might make of Walmart, being slow to check people out I'd say would be about last on my list.

Must depend on where you are, unless you’re making a broader point about their awfulness.

Every Walmart I've been to they're shuffling people out at pretty impressive speeds.

Next thing, you're going to tell me Santa is real ;). Every Walmart I've ever gone to, their checkout system is terribly slow. Their self checkout is better but still gets overwhelmed easily.

Do you have a Walmart Super Center? I wonder if it has to do with store size.

I do. There are actually a few different kinds of Walmarts around that I have visited, and it's generally the same story. I think it's a time based thing, not so much size, IMO. It seems like no matter how large or what they offer, their prices draw crowds, and they both understaff, and either under train, or make sure to put the slowest humans on Earth as the cashiers.

But the time criteria is best said in terms of when to go, since that's a much narrower window than when not to go.

Definitely depends on where you are. In cities or in California in general they are terrible compared to the rural Midwest (where they started and land/labor is much cheaper).

I don't go into Walmart often, but I've never seen lines deeper than 2 people, other than at the self checkout (one line serves 6+ lanes so a longer line obviously moves faster). Depends on where you live of course.

Yeah, the longest lines I saw were the day I foolishly went right before the Super Bowl, and even then they were moving at a great clip.

My software development experience lies far outside of the web/mobile app development world, so perhaps this idea already exists...

Similar to how PG and RTM created Viaweb (a web application that allowed non-technical people to build online e-commerce sites), are there any sites/tools which allow non-technical people develop non-trivial retail/online purchasing iPhone/Android apps?

There plenty of limited functionality (trivial in your words) style WYSIWYG style app builders. But for non-trival apps the best I've seen is https://www.dropsource.com/ They do seem to be solving this problem but not focusing on complete non-technical people, just people without direct mobile experience.

??? Amazon is not even close to Walmart in revenue or profit.

* 2017 Walmart revenue was $485B

* 2017 Amazon revenue was $178B

Profit would be a different story, of course, but you can go dig for that if you want. Certainly Walmart still has markedly higher revenue.

> that's cheaper than ~10 software devs in America (at least two of which are specialists - iOS/Android devs), a manager, an office, their equipment and their benefits packages that takes a year to 18-months to produce anything at all)

Really? It would take 10 people 18 months to produce some type of ecommerce app that would

a) allow people to bar code scan something

b) pay for it on their phone

Yes, certainly there would be more tie ins to do - tie the same in to existing POS system for inventory purposes (real time or nightly), for one.

But... 18 months? $4M?

Walmart and apparently target are working on or piloting same day pickup. I can order online and go pick up at the store right afterwards. Saves walking around the store (which might cut down impulse purchases, but hey... we'll get bombarded with upsells on the future purchases, no doubt). I might not actually want something on my doorstep the next day, but want it in my hand or car 90 minutes from now, while I'm passing the store on the way home, etc.

Walmart and Sam's Club have exactly that with their Pay & Go app.

You scan the UPCs on things as you put them in your cart. When you're done, you select pay and it displays a barcode on your screen. The checker at the door has a handheld device that they scan the barcode with, it gives them an item count, and you're on your way.

I've only ever used it at Sam's where there's always a door checker. I've heard it can be more of a pain to use at Walmarts because the door people don't always have the handheld around and have to go hunt it down.

Really, it shouldn't be surprising that they'd be a company willing to experiment in this field. Cutting labor costs to an extreme (which is actually one of the reasons I avoid Walmarts, but that's another rant) is pretty central to how they operate. And they became the behemoth they are by innovating in logistics. People often forget that they were a key figure in driving the adoption of product barcodes in the first place.

Because it takes more than just an app. Plus, that app isn't that easy.

Apple has a sky high budget for shoplifting. They have no issue with somebody walking out with an iPhone case because it implies they bought an iPhone.

Barnes and Noble would be decimated by that.

Is there a citation for this? I’d be interested in knowing if this is really true.

They’ve been chasing cost reduction for many years, reducing investment in total and in that specific case I’d bet they have considerable worries about shoplifting.

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