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Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

>Cameras everywhere and computer vision seems overkill.

If the goal is cashierless, why not just have a store full of vending machines? You pick what you want, tap your card or phone, then you get it, then walk out.

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This might generate more buyer friction[1]. Grabbing an item from a shelf is very easily reversible. But when you push a button for a vending machine to dispense something, it's not obvious how to undo that. So you will hesitate more.

Also, when people change their minds about buying something, stores need to re-shelve that product. That's probably more labor intensive for vending machines than for regular shelves. For that matter, stocking it in the first place is probably more labor intensive.

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[1] Every obstacle you encounter, even a tiny inconvenience, will reduce the odds that you go through with a purchase.

I'm guessing the longer term interest Amazon has is to use these stores to generate a dataset for their computer vision system, which they could license as a loss prevention technology to other stores

Vending machines have very strict packaging requirements. They simply can’t handle a wide variety of products.

That hasn't been true in a very long time. A walk through any major airport shows otherwise. The Best Buy Express vending machine is 10 years old at this point and that is just one of many brands now that have similar offerings. See:

https://blog.bestbuy.ca/tv-audio/headphones-tv-audio/best-bu...

and

https://thepointsguy.com/news/things-sold-airport-vending-ma...

Those are all uniform packages that meet strict requirements. Grocery stores, including Amazon cashierless stores, sell things like produce.

Picking an apple, banana, or bunch of grapes off a shelf is more difficult for a machine. The items are not uniform in size or shape. For a lot of produce, no mechanized handling system exists for quantities smaller than a bushel.

If you look at the photo at the top of the first link you can very clearly see that almost every single row has different size package footprints, not only from row but even between packages in the same row. There is no uniformity present. Further from the second link, there is no uniformity from machine to machine which is fundamentally no different the variation and shelf configuration from from shelf to shelf or aisle to aisle in a traditional brick and mortar retail store.

Having a package is a significant uniformity. Having a conveyable shape is a significant uniformity. Produce is often packaged only in bushel quantities, which are not the quantities that shoppers purchase.

"Vending machines you can walk into" is, amusingly, how I describe them to folks.

There is a bit of a misunderstanding on staffing, though. There are still about as many people as you would need for a grocery store of that size, from what I remember. They just don't work the checkout line. So, you get all of the restocking and similar capabilities that machines just can't do, yet.

That would be way less convenient than Amazon stores, having to pick what you want on a screen and then wait for it is much slower than just grabbing it off a shelf.

At that point, a self checkout machine is probably better in every way.

to be honest I'm surprised no one has funded such an effort.

Wouldn't that require people typing in the product id and making a payment several times if they want more than one thing?

Doesn't sound like a very enjoyable experience for many kinds of shopping

Is it supposed to be enjoyable now??

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