Posted on 06/20/2017 5:58:45 AM PDT by C19fan
Amazon is looking to reduce costs at Whole Foods with a new automated checkout system that would render thousands of cashiers redundant, it has been reported. Carmen Clark, 37, an employee at the Mount Pleasant Whole Foods, said, 'Everybody's been kind of joking that it's going to be robots and drones,' after the Amazon bought the grocery chain for $13.7 billion. It turns out Clark wasn't that far off, since Amazon is trying to reduce prices by replacing cashiers with a new mobile payment system, according to a person familiar with the company's plans who spoke to Bloomberg. But Amazon refuted the reports and denied that there were any job cuts in the works.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
At Kroger you are required to use self-checkout during most hours in my town.
At Randalls (Safeway, really) it’s a mixed bag. One cashier, 4 self-scan.
I never use automated checkouts other than vending machines.
The prices I see on the same strawberrys (the label is the same provider for fresh berries) at HEB and Randalls isn’t different.
Safeway-Randalls is a hell of a lot more expensive, especially if you don’t participate in their “track your buying history” program.
I sort my groceries too.
And I have had cashiers get mad at me when I ask them to stop picking through my groceries as they come down the line, I put them in the order I want them to be scanned and bagged.
And I had a gal get mad at me one day for improving her crap bagging job so I could tie the bag handles together to keep stuff from rolling around in my trunk.
This past week I started the Wal-mart grocery pickup program. I liked it a lot.
Ditto.
I use the self-checkout any time I can. I get out of the store faster.
Those who grumble about self-checkout use the same verbiage as those who grumbled about self-serve gas stations decades ago.
Now, that’s practically all there is.
Software keeps an eye out for just such a thing. All grocery store chains have that.......................
They'll kill the chain. The whole point of Whole Foods is to provide an upscale, yuppie, shopping experience. Make it like WalMart, and attract the "Walmart Crowd", and the Whole Foods customer base will shop elsewhere.
I saw something similar happen years ago when an upscale local chain was acquired. The things that I went out of my way to get from there were no longer offered, so I stopped making the special trip.
Bezos will decide who gets food.
Will there be a chip implant?
Welcome to the Fake Food store.
I prefer self check out lanes. Few people know how to bag groceries properly anymore and I just want to get in and out. It’s way faster in my cases.
LOL. I heard the same thing from every M&A that I've ever been involved with. "Everything will stay the same. No worries. Just keep your heads down, keep on working, everything will be just fine."
If they're talking about it in the news, then it's already a done deal.
Automated Check Out is also bad for Customer Service No more friendly smile, know the guy, have a nice day.
$15/hr Minimum wage in $1 Value Meal world = Unemployment for minimum wage workers.
Maybe Bill Gates was right. Tax the Robots.
How long until someone hacks that process ?
It’s a bloody pain in the ass. Having to learn so many different systems SUCKS and I hate shopping and just wanna get OUT.
Soaring labor costs may have made that business model unsustainable. If it is, and Amazazon has figured that out, it’ll be interesting to see what Amazon has in mind for Whole Foods.
Ha, ha. Sounds like the “convenience” stores in Florida. 20 landscapers and construction workers in line. Half illegal. Very convenient.
Hate the DMV. It’s a jobs/reparations for certain types of people.
Wonder who will not scan items free food?.
The whole concept of ME pumping my own gas or doing my own checkout and bagging makes me angry. I want service. We are supposed to be in a “service economy,” but that seems to mean you get less and less service every year. Just try to get a human service agent on the phone.
Sure miss the old days when the gas station attendants flocked to your vehicle to check everything out and the grocery store took your groceries to your car and loaded the bags for you.
Bah! Humbug!
One of the times I was grocery shopping after work, a clerk tried to guide me to the self service. I told her I’d been working with computers all day, I was ready to have someone else do it for me.
You already have to pay sales tax in most states for Amazon purchases because of their extensive logistics operations that now exist in almost all states.
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