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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

The cashierless thing is fine, but is never going to be the reason people pick one store over another. The problem with Amazon Go is that they have been trying to target the "upscale convenience store" demographic which doesn't really exist. If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf? Charging 2x what the CVS next door does defeats the purpose.

Moreover, if having an Amazon account is a requirement for entering the store then they are effectively targeting people who'd rather order stuff online. Their focus shouldn't have been on Amazon users but the rest of the world.

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The funny thing is, I never got the impression it had less employees than a typical CVS. They were just either in the back keeping the items stocked on the shelves, helping customers feel comfortable with the the idea they just walk out, or keeping an eye on theft.

Actually, I'd be curious to know what the hiring situation looked like. Good employees would only stick around if they felt valued and paid fairly, otherwise they'd turn over. So you'd be left with the worst of the bunch. Since Amazon would have to find ways to keep retention up, they would likely have to pay market rate, or slightly above to attract willing people. That extra cost is definitely passed on to the customer.

Disregarding the prices for the sake of argument, I still prefer CVS as it just feels easier to navigate. CVS accumulated a half century of tiny little details that Amazon Go just doesn't have figured out yet.

> but is never going to be the reason people pick one store over another.

speak for yourself. I commonly wait in line at the walgreens near me for longer than I was shopping for. If I had the choice between walgreens and the exact same store with cashierless tech I'd never go to walgreens.

There's the middle option. Last year my local discount supermarket replaced one checkout lane and a shelf of alcohol with 6 self-checkout machines.

So far, I've never seen a queue for these, and they're quick to use.

Anecdata, but both of the ones by me typically have lines unless you go during slow times (9-11am, 2pm-4pm, after 9pm).

It's often deceptively faster to go through the cashiered lines because of how quickly they can scan and bag.

It's surprising how fast they are. The duo can frequently scan and bag faster than I can pull stuff out of my cart.

> The cashierless thing is fine, but is never going to be the reason people pick one store over another.

There is a Go-style Amazon Fresh very near my house. There are 4 other grocery stores roughly the same distance away. I find myself going to Amazon Fresh more often than not because of how easy it is to walk in, grab something, and walk out. They even put your shopping time on the emailed receipt - and I've made it through in less than a minute on more than one occasion.

Amazon Fresh is my nearest grocery store but I bike two miles farther just to avoid it.

Not sure if it's the same in the US but in Canada the convenience store is already inherently an upscale destination because of how much more everything costs compared to a supermarket.

Not sure about Canada, but in the US all convenience stores I've been to (except Amazon) sell a very narrow subset of goods found in a supermarket: mostly shitfood, cigarettes, booze and lottery tickets, maybe a small shelf with emergency supplies or a brown-looking banana. This attracts the type of crowd that enjoys consuming these goods.

Amazon, as I agree with the parent, was neither here nor there, not as well stocked as the CVS, and too weird/too hip for a 7-11.

> If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf

Are they getting rid of human labor? Who is doing stocking, as needed cleanup, opening/closing, and overseeing all that?

I'm guessing humans are doing that. And as a customer. It seems to be most of what the people who also work as cashiers are doing, outsidd of a few rush periods where those other tasks, except emergency safety-necessary cleanup, aren’t happening or are deferred.

Seems to be its more likely Amazon is adding tech (which has a cost) which mainly serves to enable less efficient use of human labor.

Your comment just made something click for me.

CVS (a drug store) by me has also gotten rid of cashiers... but for self-checkout. So have Royal Farms, a regional gas station/convenience store chain. At both places, if you really try, you can maybe get a cashier at a single human cashier counter, but it's normally unstaffed, and everyone directed to the multiple self check out stations.

(I think USA readers know what i mean by self checkout station, but it's, where you can items yourself, and place them in bags yourself, and it yells at you if it doesn't detect the right weight of items placed in bags on a platform, and the whole thing is video taped).

Amazon's stre isn't really an alternative to cashiers, it's an alternative to universal self-checkout that everyone else is moving to -- accelerated by the pandemic, but still relatively early on the adoption curve.

I assume universal self-check-out does reduce staffing needs, which is why they are all moving to it?

I suspect the Amazon cashierless stores won't really take off until all their competition is universal self-checkout. (Which may never happen in say NYC, where you have so many independent very-low-overhead bodega-type stores. But in most places, the competition is more like CVS or Royal Farms).

Although I dunno, maybe I'm unusual in prefering human contact to self-checkout, something about the choices being self-checkout with a line or walk out of the store without checking out -- starts to make the Amazon option actually look like something you would want.

I too prefer human check-out lines.

I always find that self-checkout system that everyone uses to be slower and clunky. The worst is at the grocery store where I have to search and find each item of produce, weigh it and then carefully place it in the bag. If any step in that flow goes slightly wrong, the system freezes and waits for an employee to come by and check what I'm doing.

However, in the "fast casual" space, where I'm able to order food items on a touch screen system, or a mobile website, I have actually become much happier to do that. Sometimes it takes me a while to know what I want and having access to pictures or longer descriptions helps me on my journey.

I'm not too worried about systems like completely replacing human contact though. I've seen similar attempts at sit-down restaurants and bars fail, likely because people go to those places expecting to interact with another human.

There are sit-down restaurants near me that now the only way to order is by scanning a QR code, which identifies your table, and ordering on a website. Someone drops your food off when it's ready, you've already paid with a credit card on the website. (You can add a tip).

Started during the pandemic, pretty sure it's never going away. (The folks who made those apps bet right).

I try to avoid them.

But in the area of CVS (USA-style drug stores) or Royal Farms (chain convenience store, often attached to a gas station) -- as well as grocery stores in general -- self-check-out is already predominant around me, and I also don't see it going away. I suspect you're right it will never totally win in the restaurant space, but in the grocery store and convenience store space, it pretty much already has over here.

I prefer human check-out lines because I don't particularly like having to do work for the store I'm shopping at.

Self checkout is generally annoying in a few cases:

* You use reusable bags. In general most systems I've used dislike when you put a bag in the area with the weighing things, so now I have to spend double the time moving items around because they can't just go directly into the bag

* with fresh produce, the cashier will most likely have the most common items memorized and punch in the code without a hitch, whereas I have to navigate a clunky UI to figure out which kind of green onions to charge

* anything involving an ID check is much faster; a human is legally required to be there to verify, and the cashier is already conveniently there, as opposed to a self-checkout register where I have to wait for somebody to come to me

The only issue I have with them is limited area to put your bags. Is the space made for ants? In college I was a cashier so I still have a 6th sense about where UPC/QR codes are and I can buzz through items as fast as most cashiers, however the limited bagging areas are very annoying.

> I assume universal self-check-out does reduce staffing needs, which is why they are all moving to it?

My grocery store has 8 self-checkout stations overseen by one employee, and like 10 or so regular checkout lanes. Advantages of self-checkout:

* Less employees to manage it (regular checkout usually has the cashier and a bagger, so we're looking at 1 employee vs 16 for the same number of open registers).

* A single entry line, so if one customer gets stuck the rest of the customers behind them aren't just standing there waiting, so as long as you know how to use self-checkout it's going to be faster.

* The conveyor belts on regular checkout are often pretty gross (dried sticky pop for example), while at self checkout you're putting your items directly into the bag after scanning them.

Yeah but I can't imagine a CVS/Walmart having people just walk in and pay for things with their app and happily move along. I more or less see the mass robberies that are currently happening in various metro areas, particularly in California. They'd empty the store in minutes.

same logic applied to the rings of power. Amazon has a problem realising that a niche...is a niche.

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