Posted on 12/06/2016 8:56:13 AM PST by jcon40
There’s a term used to describe people who walk into a store, help themselves to a sandwich or a cupcake, and then promptly walk out: Shoplifters. But maybe not for much longer. Amazon just lifted the lid on its new Amazon Go technology, which looks to fundamentally transform the retail world.
Here’s how it works. You enter a store using Amazon’s propriety technology and flash your personal QR code to a reader. Then, you just pick up what you want and walk out. No dealing with infuriating self-checkout machines or cashiers. The money is automatically taken from a nominated credit or debit card. It’s the ultimate in grab-and-go retail convenience.
Amazon Go is powered by a combination of computer vision, sensors and machine learning, packaged up into something the company calls “Just Walk Out technology.”
(Excerpt) Read more at heatst.com ...
Unless this thing has a way of issuing a receipt to go with the item, I can’t see how it would work, nor as a shopper would I necessarily want it (in the case of desiring a credit, refund, or exchange).
It sounds here like walking out the door with the item after having flashed the card generates the sale.
Maybe this is OK after all... so long as the system has a way to buzz the door at someone who has tried to do it WITHOUT that QR scan.
Interesting that this is Seattle with a $15 minimum wage.
in another article same subject, if you take it out of your cart it doesn’t get charged. You get your receipt via email.
I worked about 12 years in Retail Management. A lot comes from employees but shoplifters are a class apart.
If it’s something that you can carry and put down or pick up as you please, then it wouldn’t be such a thing.
Maybe this is symbolic. Maybe the hand represents actions, and the forehead represents thoughts. If you will not behave and think like the beast wants, you become anathema to that society. We’ve already seen far-lefty liberalism get virulent like that in areas where it prevails. (Extreme-righty reactionarianism could do it too in principle, but that is not a modern problem.)
Makes sense, if you lay it down somewhere then you haven’t gone out the door with it. It might be mislaid for a while, but there’s probably some store scanner that can identify mislaid items to be returned to their proper shelves.
Maybe the scanner could also identify radiation-opaque containers to require looking at by door greeters “so nothing is accidentally forgotten.”
EBT card will likely work to.
There goes their demand for 15 dollars an hour.
If I’m reading this right, it assumes that each shopper is shopping by themselves, and therefore has one app-enabled phone per shopper to track purchases with.
What happens if a family is shopping? Or a group of friends with only one phone to open the door with? If someone enters by following another person through the door instead of using their own smartphone, can they leave without being tracked?
I think it still works. At least for the flash mobbers looking for that last-minute 100% off stocking stuffer.
“I’ve read where the biggest losses are from employees themselves.”
I once cashiered at a store where the friends/families were so used to getting freebies, they assumed that all the cashiers were complicit. They’d say, “I’m so-and-so’s aunt, this 10 lb ham is complementary” and when I’d grin and reply, “I’ll need to ring it up and you can get your reimbursement at the service desk,” they’d curse at me.
A few of them even complained to management with fabricated BS stories that I’d been rude to them, to try to get me fired.
Of course, when I told management that so-and-so was the problem, not me, I was quickly persona non grata, since so-and-so was the manager’s best friend’s daughter. I found myself being “written up” for other imaginary infractions.
Didn’t work there long.
I recall an IBM commercial from ten or fifteen years ago touting such a system in a clean, brightly lit grocery store. A young, scruffy looking guy in a trench coat roams the aisles stuffing items into his coat, all the while getting disapproving looks from a well-dressed older woman with a shopping cart. As the young man moves toward the exit, an older security guard stops him, saying, “Your receipt, sir.”
Could be confusing. “Oh, Junior, you need to scan that before putting it in the cart, or we will get stopped at the door to correct it.” I think the point is to associate the item with the paying account, and then to commit the sale by leaving the store with it.
We zipped right past implanted chip technology. Now it’s app based. Always the problem with trying to apply prophecies to the real world, the real world keeps on changing.
I think you are missing the point.
You still walk into the store, and pick the items you want and place them in your cart. No one is forcing you to get the expired milk or rotten vegetables.
The system just knows what you put in your cart and charges you for it automatically. It is just designed to eliminate the requirement to have people manning check out counters.
(I agree with you)
You will be entering a lot of information into your personal preference database based on your purchases. Amazon will target you with ads and also sell your information to others. Did you buy beer or a girly magazine? maybe something that the FBI would be interested in.
No thanks, I rather be free.
If the store owner wanted to gift the items, fine.. but surely they had a way of issuing store credits, not just wink-nod them past the cashiers. Sounds flakey to me, you were right to go.
I just read last night that grocery stores were soon going to be like this.
And there will no physical credit cards to swap, lose or get stolen.
Unless there was some option to clear the store’s record of what you bought, once you’ve paid from your account.
These issues can arise with loyalty cards too. They want to know what you bought, maybe so they can issue coupons for similar things on future visits.
An FBI that is going to care is one that’s suffered fatal mission creep too, and would likely be busybody in many other ways.
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