Posted on 04/19/2025 5:39:14 PM PDT by dennisw
Sam's Club stores is axing all self-checkouts from its 600 stores — in favor of controversial new technology.
The Walmart-owned warehouse chain, often seen as Costco's biggest rival, is rolling out AI-powered 'Scan & Go' tech that lets shoppers skip the line and walk straight out the door once they're done shopping.
The move is controversial because it uses a network of cameras and sensors to track shoppers and their carts.
In addition, the checkout-free experience requires all customers to use a smartphone and download the store’s app.
This could pose a challenge to older shoppers who may struggle with technology.
The shake-up is aimed at reducing checkout wait times as it eliminates the need for an employee to check receipts at the exit.
Customers will scan the product barcodes as they go around the store, put the item in their cart and then pay for the items in the app when they are done.
Rather than go to a register, they exit through an airport-style scanner with AI cameras that analyze carts to make sure all items in there have been scanned and paid for.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Where is it written we all must like ALL technology? Or else we’re compartmentalized by the likes of people like you?
We had a Sam’s Club membership for a year; didn’t renew it because we couldn’t see that the prices were any lower than anywhere else.
Costco has reaffirmed their commitment to DEi. One of the few corporations to do so.
F them. Support them at your peril. Glad you like their products.
I’ll go to Sam’s any day instead.
No.
Cell phones leak like a sieve.
“I love it. No waiting for alow checkers or slow customers in self check line.”
You will love it until all stores are like this and then the government says “you are prohibited from purchasing that, you have already purchased your limit for the month”.
Because this is absolutely the next step of this concept.
“Where is it written we all must like ALL technology?”
Absolutely... Here Here...
Walmart trialed something similar about five years ago.
You could pick up a scanner in a kiosk at the front of the store and scan as you placed items in your cart.
The trial lasted a couple of weeks and the stuff disappeared.
I admire your passion.
Anyone using this is asking for it.
Japanese stores include a barcode scanner built into the shopping cart. When you have selected an item, just pick up the scanner and scan that item. Then put into your shopping cart. Then return the scanner to its holding area in the cart. Easy.
When finished, you just press the PAY NOW on the scanner and it debits your card.
WDS.
this article is complete bullshit ... we’ve not seen a single self-checkout removed from any Sam’s that we shop at ...
and we’re not even sure what the arches actually do since they were installed in Sam’s stores several months ago ...
basically, i don’t think they actually work for whatever they were originally intended for ... there’s still an exit clerk posted at the exit door between the arch and exit, and mostly it seems the clerks wave through folks whom they know, and stop and do a regular 3-item check on carts of folks that they don’t know or are suspicious of ...
we shop at Sam’s a couple of times a week and know many of the workers by name and they know us, and they always just wave us on through the exit ... but when there’s a brand new exit clerk, they’ll stop us and everyone else for the 3-time scan ...
what we really think is going on is that the exit clerks are simply profiling customers ....
and it’s total nonsense that Sam’s will require ALL customers to have a smart phone with their “app”, because as it is, half their customers can barely write a check or figure out how to use a credit or debit card ...
for a while the local grocery stores tried “digital coupons” that required use of checkout clerks scanning smart phone QC pics, and the stores would make the “digital coupon only sale” notes so small that they weren’t readable and customers would be pissed at checkout when they realized they had been conned, and when someone DID have a smartphone with the QC code there was always lengthy problems getting the damn things to scan ... basically, customers simply avoided all sale items that were “digital only”, and the whole thing was so useless and disastrous that the stores finally gave up their ignoble experiment ...
article is total bullshit ... see my post 112 ...
article is total bullshit ... see my post 112 ...
ACLU lawyers lining up as we speak.
No thanks. Not going there again.
PING!
I'm almost 69 years old. A boomer. I've been a software engineer since 1980. I built device drivers for CP/M, HDOS 2.0 and OS9 prior to 1983 and moved on to UNIX device drivers including TCP/IP and X.25 L2/L3 communications stacks for UNISYS 1100/92, UNISYS 7000, HP-UX (7.0->9.0) and Linux. The foundations of what you enjoy today has been my career. In 1985, my ham radio buddies left MA/COM LinkaBit and tried to entice me away from my job at Pacific Bell. It was a bad time as I had cancer. The company they started is Qualcomm. I did contract work for them at Wingcast to integrate their chipsets into a new telematics device manufactured in Korea (potential OnStar competitor). The H1B hires failed to deliver the enterprise grade of what I did in the lab at smaller scale.
I have carried an Android phone (Motorola or Samsung) as long as they have been manufactured. I like being able to develop code for my phone...not just limited to being an appliance user. The point is that "boomers" aren't the Luddites you imagine. Many of them built the technology you enjoy today. I'm still building specialized systems for DTRA today including machine learning and AI elements. My only misgiving at this point is that my boss has a long list of work he wants from me and is running out of budget to pay for it in May. If I can't land another gig shortly, I'll simple retire. It will be strange to no longer put in 50 to 70 hour weeks, but you can't do that forever.
Out local Amazon store uses the same technology.
Good choice imo. The Ai apps probably sucks up every drop of information that is on your phone like bank and credit card accounts & passwords.(If not, they are working on it) From there it gets worse, so much so that we shouldn’t even talk about it.
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