5 ms·

"The machine, Spadea said, is being used primarily as a marketing tool, not the first step toward employee-less McDonald’s restaurants." lol

stephengillie 10y ago
Employee-less retail locations do not currently make economic sense. For the near to moderate future, every business will keep at least 1-2 employees per location, mostly to handle extreme edge cases like flooding, cars being driven into the building, or hostage situations. And that's in addition to the jobs that are still to complex or performed too rarely to automate. Also, some humans are always going to want to talk to a human - maybe to express praise or dissatisfaction with something trivial about their visit, and receive a Hawthorne effect-like reward[1] - and so the human becomes a "human interface device" part of the machine. Remember how self-check registers were supposed to replace grocery store checkers? It's been over a decade, and stores still pay people to wave food over a red light. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
- goda90 10y ago
  I prefer self checkout except for the difficulty of using coupons, and the fact that the systems are unbelievably slow in most stores. Those are relatively trivial things to sort out and then self checkout would be all I need. I'm sure there are people who would never prefer them, but I've seen huge lines for self checkout when there are almost no lines in regular checkout more than once.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Going from the minimum 5+ people at a time staffing a McDonalds to 1 is going to be a big difference. Eatsa is sort of illustrative on the customer service side; they have a single person out front to open & close the restaurant, monitor the restaurant and clean up as necessary. I think that getting rid of the last person will be tricky with anywhere that has a dining area, but I could imagine a drive-through McDonalds with no employees, or a McDonald's vending machine.
- manarth 10y ago
  every business will keep at least 1-2 employees per location, mostly to handle extreme edge cases like flooding, cars being driven into the building, or hostage situations. I wonder how many McDonalds has experienced a flood, a car being driven into the building, or a hostage situation, in the last 10 years. I dare say it's an insignificant proportion - not enough to warrant 1-2 employees per place. I dare that you are right - every business will still need a few employees for each location - but rather than hostage situations or floods, the cases will be rather more humdrum. Whether it's computers crashing, ovens needing oiling, cleaning, supplies that need refilling - there will be plenty of routine tasks that need a human to carry out.
- GFischer 10y ago
  While I agree with your statement as-is (Employee-less retail locations do not currently make economic sense"), I do believe we'll see a dramatic reduction in employment in commodity retail locations (anything that sells upscale or non-essentials will retain humans). Many large companies are trying very hard, and tech is basically here, see for example: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011 https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011 Self-check is getting a lot better too (I don't understand why it's getting delayed). I also believe that employee arbitrage is an opportunity (serving high-cost areas from low-cost areas, and improving employee usage and efficiency), and I'm going to personally invest in building tech to enable that.
  - stephengillie 10y ago
    It's an interesting idea. I have a lot of questions around Loss Prevention - how do they address shoplifting, on-premises consumption, destruction of merchandise, and other retail issues Amazon hasn't faced before.

stephengillie 10y ago

Employee-less retail locations do not currently make economic sense. For the near to moderate future, every business will keep at least 1-2 employees per location, mostly to handle extreme edge cases like flooding, cars being driven into the building, or hostage situations. And that's in addition to the jobs that are still to complex or performed too rarely to automate. Also, some humans are always going to want to talk to a human - maybe to express praise or dissatisfaction with something trivial about their visit, and receive a Hawthorne effect-like reward[1] - and so the human becomes a "human interface device" part of the machine. Remember how self-check registers were supposed to replace grocery store checkers? It's been over a decade, and stores still pay people to wave food over a red light. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

goda90 10y ago
I prefer self checkout except for the difficulty of using coupons, and the fact that the systems are unbelievably slow in most stores. Those are relatively trivial things to sort out and then self checkout would be all I need. I'm sure there are people who would never prefer them, but I've seen huge lines for self checkout when there are almost no lines in regular checkout more than once.
Eridrus 10y ago
Going from the minimum 5+ people at a time staffing a McDonalds to 1 is going to be a big difference. Eatsa is sort of illustrative on the customer service side; they have a single person out front to open & close the restaurant, monitor the restaurant and clean up as necessary. I think that getting rid of the last person will be tricky with anywhere that has a dining area, but I could imagine a drive-through McDonalds with no employees, or a McDonald's vending machine.
manarth 10y ago
every business will keep at least 1-2 employees per location, mostly to handle extreme edge cases like flooding, cars being driven into the building, or hostage situations. I wonder how many McDonalds has experienced a flood, a car being driven into the building, or a hostage situation, in the last 10 years. I dare say it's an insignificant proportion - not enough to warrant 1-2 employees per place. I dare that you are right - every business will still need a few employees for each location - but rather than hostage situations or floods, the cases will be rather more humdrum. Whether it's computers crashing, ovens needing oiling, cleaning, supplies that need refilling - there will be plenty of routine tasks that need a human to carry out.
GFischer 10y ago
While I agree with your statement as-is (Employee-less retail locations do not currently make economic sense"), I do believe we'll see a dramatic reduction in employment in commodity retail locations (anything that sells upscale or non-essentials will retain humans). Many large companies are trying very hard, and tech is basically here, see for example: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011 https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011 Self-check is getting a lot better too (I don't understand why it's getting delayed). I also believe that employee arbitrage is an opportunity (serving high-cost areas from low-cost areas, and improving employee usage and efficiency), and I'm going to personally invest in building tech to enable that.
- stephengillie 10y ago
  It's an interesting idea. I have a lot of questions around Loss Prevention - how do they address shoplifting, on-premises consumption, destruction of merchandise, and other retail issues Amazon hasn't faced before.