6 ms·

> I'm sorry but if you cost the store $25 by leaving a damned ROAST in the cereal aisle, I would be perfectly happy to never let you in the store again. Wouldn

by 0xfeba 10y ago

> I'm sorry but if you cost the store $25 by leaving a damned ROAST in the cereal aisle, I would be perfectly happy to never let you in the store again. Wouldn't a better solution be to charge the customer for the roast and if they complain, you explain: "sorry, you didn't put it on the proper shelf, the technology considers that as a purchase", and possibly eat the cost in the form of some incentive to come back to try to keep them. The ones that don't complain either didn't notice, or they don't care enough to stop shopping, or they won't come back like you suggest. The ones that complain get it taken care of, the ones that don't don't cost you anything. Win-win-break even?

cpmsmith 10y ago
IMO, any messaging in the format "sorry, $thingYouDid, the technology considers that as $notWhatYouDid" is a recipe for customer loss.
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  Not at all in this case. The benefits of this technology and the disincentives for bad behavior are strong enough that this would work.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  I agree with your point, but at the same time, you should be charged the price of the food if you grab perishable food and place it in an area that renders it unsafe. I worked in retail and at theme parks, and I'm personally of the opinion that it's better for everyone in the long run if you fire entitled customers.
  - iamdave 10y ago
    , you should be charged the price of the food if you grab perishable food and place it in an area that renders it unsafe That'd constitute a massive retooling of consumer behavior and logic and would require quite a bit of conditioning over many years, no?
    - Veedrac 10y ago
      That sounds like exactly what Amazon are trying!
    - JaphyRyder 10y ago
      Not really. Customers already pay more if they don't have the company card, aren't "loyal" etc... Instead of it being framed as a fine or punishment or way to "fire customers" it is simply referred to as a discount and a way to get coupons.
    - jachee 10y ago
      > retooling of customer behavior One or more hits to the wallet would be strong negative reinforcement.
  - digler999 10y ago
    > if you fire entitled customers. That would be fine in the ages before social media. Now everyone "takes to twitter" and tries to organize a social pitchfork campaign. The victimhood mentality is real. People get off on the celebrity from being wronged by a big bad corporation. It wouldn't be long before some jerk posts a video of himself leaving a roast on the cereal aisle and being '86'ed from the store, then post it straight to Youtube for all the delicious karma points. Corporate image is a big deal.
    - zimbu668 10y ago
      Sounds like that place would have lower prices since the costs of customers like that isn't spread around to considerate people, I think I would like to shop there.
    - lmkg 10y ago
      Unless you make it "your thing." Take for example the Alamo Drafthouse, a chain of movies theaters that are aggressive in removing patrons that disrupt other viewers' experience. In the few times that people have tried to complain, the company has generally come out of it for the better. I will admit this strategy won't work for everyone. Most corporations are not willing to respond to a complaint by using social media to (accurately) call the complainer an obnoxious asshole.
      - digler999 10y ago
        who's got more profit: Alamo Drafthouse or Regal Cinemas ? Or rather, if you own X-thousand shares of XYZ corp, do you want them to "aggressively wage morality war" at the cost of $1.00/share, or maximize profits ?
        OMGTehAwsome 10y ago
        From what I've read Alamo Drafthouse has over double the per-screen revenue of Cinemark. Their strict, pro-viewer policies really engender customer loyalty.
      - kem 10y ago
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Getting rid of bad customers is exactly what is being suggested.
makecheck 10y ago
Aside from putting up the odd sign to discourage certain behavior, no, I do not think that stores have any good reason to bend over backwards to keep individual customers. Retail is far too accommodating already. Some people figure that being a “valued customer” means they can be an unending source of sunken costs in time, effort and stress, among other things. And those costs can be multiplied across the other customers waiting in line, too. If a “customer” is destroying your inventory, annoying other customers, or commanding far more of your time than warranted, there is no reason to put up with them. Protect the larger investment, which is: all your other customers, your store, and your employees.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Stores bake that into the cost of doing business, it's like dropping something and breaking it, in the vast vast majority of cases you won't be charged for it, just be clean up on aisle 3... Heck I've dropped jars or similar things during bagging after paying for them several times and every time I was offered a replacement. Mistakes happen, it's often considerably more expensive to deal with customer complaints especially in the age of social media than it is to replace an item. It's also important to note that this is baked into the cost of doing business all along the supply chain, if items are not sold they will be often returned by the store to the distributor which would chuck them as a loss, or more often than not sell them for other uses other than human consumption. Some perishables are thrown away others are then sold to other industries e.g. the roast that was left over might end up as dog food... For a dog food company it's cheaper to buy discarded meat produce the dog food take samples and while it's being shipped do the cultures to ensure that there are no contaminants or bacteria and if something fishy is found just do a recall upstream for specific batch than it is to buy "fresh" meat and ingredients which are fit for human consumption. Supply chains are huge and complex and all these little annoyances don't really count for much, it only really bothered very small stores that have to buy everything almost up front and they aren't leasing effectively shelf space for distributors.
  - dimino 10y ago
    It'd be nice, for the stores, if they didn't have to bake so much "attrition" into their accounting.
mortenjorck 10y ago
According to the cupcake example in the video, this is all in real-time, right? A much better experience would be warning the user as they go - the ham remains in their "cart" and is clearly flagged as abandoned (maybe with a push notification if they don't have the phone out, though I imagine most customers will be double-checking).
- ced_vdb 10y ago
  Why not just take it out of the cart then if it is clearly flagged as abandoned ?
criley2 10y ago
>Wouldn't a better solution be to charge the customer for the roast and if they complain, you explain: "sorry, you didn't put it on the proper shelf, the technology considers that as a purchase", It might be legal federally, and in red states, but this sounds like a class action lawsuit in a liberal state with strong consumer protection laws just waiting for hungry lawyers.
maerF0x0 10y ago
> Wouldn't a better solution be to charge the customer for the roast and if they complain, you explain: "sorry, you didn't put it on the proper shelf, the technology considers that as a purchase", and possibly eat the cost in the form of some incentive to come back to try to keep them. The ones that don't complain either didn't notice, or they don't care enough to stop shopping, or they won't come back like you suggest. One could simply retrain the customer by literally charging them the moment they take it off the shelf, refunding them if they put it back. It would look crazy on your bank/credit bill but i think a legion of micropayments maybe the future anyways. There might be an opportunity there to turn a stream of 100s of micropayments into meaningful data for the end user.
qyv 10y ago
There are many potential reasons that an item could be put back in the improper spot on a shelf that does not induce a loss for the store nor is malicious by the shopper. Things very often get put back into the same shelf but a different position. But what about this: What is to stop someone from pulling items out of other people carts?
- OMGTehAwsome 10y ago
  There are no carts, just bags. This doesn't appear to be a replacement for traditional grocery stores but rather corner stores or bodegas, so there isn't a need for them.

by 0xfeba 10y ago

cpmsmith 10y ago

IMO, any messaging in the format "sorry, $thingYouDid, the technology considers that as $notWhatYouDid" is a recipe for customer loss.

johnwheeler 10y ago
Not at all in this case. The benefits of this technology and the disincentives for bad behavior are strong enough that this would work.
Declanomous 10y ago
I agree with your point, but at the same time, you should be charged the price of the food if you grab perishable food and place it in an area that renders it unsafe. I worked in retail and at theme parks, and I'm personally of the opinion that it's better for everyone in the long run if you fire entitled customers.
- iamdave 10y ago
  , you should be charged the price of the food if you grab perishable food and place it in an area that renders it unsafe That'd constitute a massive retooling of consumer behavior and logic and would require quite a bit of conditioning over many years, no?
  - Veedrac 10y ago
    That sounds like exactly what Amazon are trying!
  - JaphyRyder 10y ago
    Not really. Customers already pay more if they don't have the company card, aren't "loyal" etc... Instead of it being framed as a fine or punishment or way to "fire customers" it is simply referred to as a discount and a way to get coupons.
  - jachee 10y ago
    > retooling of customer behavior One or more hits to the wallet would be strong negative reinforcement.
- digler999 10y ago
  > if you fire entitled customers. That would be fine in the ages before social media. Now everyone "takes to twitter" and tries to organize a social pitchfork campaign. The victimhood mentality is real. People get off on the celebrity from being wronged by a big bad corporation. It wouldn't be long before some jerk posts a video of himself leaving a roast on the cereal aisle and being '86'ed from the store, then post it straight to Youtube for all the delicious karma points. Corporate image is a big deal.
  - zimbu668 10y ago
    Sounds like that place would have lower prices since the costs of customers like that isn't spread around to considerate people, I think I would like to shop there.
  - lmkg 10y ago
    Unless you make it "your thing." Take for example the Alamo Drafthouse, a chain of movies theaters that are aggressive in removing patrons that disrupt other viewers' experience. In the few times that people have tried to complain, the company has generally come out of it for the better. I will admit this strategy won't work for everyone. Most corporations are not willing to respond to a complaint by using social media to (accurately) call the complainer an obnoxious asshole.
    - digler999 10y ago
      who's got more profit: Alamo Drafthouse or Regal Cinemas ? Or rather, if you own X-thousand shares of XYZ corp, do you want them to "aggressively wage morality war" at the cost of $1.00/share, or maximize profits ?
      - OMGTehAwsome 10y ago
        From what I've read Alamo Drafthouse has over double the per-screen revenue of Cinemark. Their strict, pro-viewer policies really engender customer loyalty.
    - kem 10y ago
maxerickson 10y ago
Getting rid of bad customers is exactly what is being suggested.

makecheck 10y ago

Aside from putting up the odd sign to discourage certain behavior, no, I do not think that stores have any good reason to bend over backwards to keep individual customers. Retail is far too accommodating already. Some people figure that being a “valued customer” means they can be an unending source of sunken costs in time, effort and stress, among other things. And those costs can be multiplied across the other customers waiting in line, too. If a “customer” is destroying your inventory, annoying other customers, or commanding far more of your time than warranted, there is no reason to put up with them. Protect the larger investment, which is: all your other customers, your store, and your employees.

dogma1138 10y ago
Stores bake that into the cost of doing business, it's like dropping something and breaking it, in the vast vast majority of cases you won't be charged for it, just be clean up on aisle 3... Heck I've dropped jars or similar things during bagging after paying for them several times and every time I was offered a replacement. Mistakes happen, it's often considerably more expensive to deal with customer complaints especially in the age of social media than it is to replace an item. It's also important to note that this is baked into the cost of doing business all along the supply chain, if items are not sold they will be often returned by the store to the distributor which would chuck them as a loss, or more often than not sell them for other uses other than human consumption. Some perishables are thrown away others are then sold to other industries e.g. the roast that was left over might end up as dog food... For a dog food company it's cheaper to buy discarded meat produce the dog food take samples and while it's being shipped do the cultures to ensure that there are no contaminants or bacteria and if something fishy is found just do a recall upstream for specific batch than it is to buy "fresh" meat and ingredients which are fit for human consumption. Supply chains are huge and complex and all these little annoyances don't really count for much, it only really bothered very small stores that have to buy everything almost up front and they aren't leasing effectively shelf space for distributors.
- dimino 10y ago
  It'd be nice, for the stores, if they didn't have to bake so much "attrition" into their accounting.

mortenjorck 10y ago

According to the cupcake example in the video, this is all in real-time, right? A much better experience would be warning the user as they go - the ham remains in their "cart" and is clearly flagged as abandoned (maybe with a push notification if they don't have the phone out, though I imagine most customers will be double-checking).

ced_vdb 10y ago
Why not just take it out of the cart then if it is clearly flagged as abandoned ?

criley2 10y ago

>Wouldn't a better solution be to charge the customer for the roast and if they complain, you explain: "sorry, you didn't put it on the proper shelf, the technology considers that as a purchase", It might be legal federally, and in red states, but this sounds like a class action lawsuit in a liberal state with strong consumer protection laws just waiting for hungry lawyers.

maerF0x0 10y ago

> Wouldn't a better solution be to charge the customer for the roast and if they complain, you explain: "sorry, you didn't put it on the proper shelf, the technology considers that as a purchase", and possibly eat the cost in the form of some incentive to come back to try to keep them. The ones that don't complain either didn't notice, or they don't care enough to stop shopping, or they won't come back like you suggest. One could simply retrain the customer by literally charging them the moment they take it off the shelf, refunding them if they put it back. It would look crazy on your bank/credit bill but i think a legion of micropayments maybe the future anyways. There might be an opportunity there to turn a stream of 100s of micropayments into meaningful data for the end user.

qyv 10y ago

There are many potential reasons that an item could be put back in the improper spot on a shelf that does not induce a loss for the store nor is malicious by the shopper. Things very often get put back into the same shelf but a different position. But what about this: What is to stop someone from pulling items out of other people carts?

OMGTehAwsome 10y ago
There are no carts, just bags. This doesn't appear to be a replacement for traditional grocery stores but rather corner stores or bodegas, so there isn't a need for them.