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Delivery and curbside pickup require more employees than the traditional method of customers picking their groceries from the shelves. The grocery stores simpl

by nokcha 6y ago

Delivery and curbside pickup require more employees than the traditional method of customers picking their groceries from the shelves. The grocery stores simply don't have enough employees to serve all their customers if they only do delivery and curbside pickup.

mullingitover 6y ago
I understand, which is why I'm advocating closing down the cash registers to shunt staff into serving delivery and pickup orders. We shouldn't be incentivizing the population to pack into a single building because we're fetishizing the ritual of going to the checkout line. The checkout line should be lowest priority for staffing.
- deadmetheny 6y ago
  Shutting down registers and making the handful of regular checkers do delivery/pickup orders isn't tenable - the throughput isn't even close to similar. Putting together pickup/deliveries is very time consuming for traditional grocers. And then what happens when someone who doesn't have the ability to shop via app needs groceries? Do they call in, and take up another employee's bandwidth while they take down the list?
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > And then what happens when someone who doesn't have the ability to shop via app needs groceries? Do they call in, and take up another employee's bandwidth while they take down the list? Absolutely. An employee taking orders on the phone instead of working the cash register is an employee who's not getting exposed to coronavirus. I can't believe we're talking about unemployment going to the moon and at the same time saying we can't spare precious labor resources. Talking grocery orders over the phone is something anyone with a grade school education can do.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      It seems like you are assuming supermarkets can support the same number of customers if the reallocated their staff to pickup/delivery. As a shopper who knows what I want and where to get it, I might spend 15 minutes shopping at a minute at the register, and that doesn't count my drive to and from the store. With respect to unemployment, nobody is interestested in working at a super-market, especially when unemployment is pays 50% more [1]. Workers would quit if it did not disqualify them from unemployment [1] the average cashier salary is 30k/year (575/week) and the current unemployment benefit for the same salary is 875/ week when you include the additional $600 https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/cashier-grocery-store-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/cashier-gro... https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/ui-calculator.htm https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/ui-calculator.htm
petra 6y ago
We have the same problem in Israel. So here when you order online, you don't get to choose items: you can only buy one standard list of products. Also,I believe it's possible to build a covid-19 safe ,pickup process. So scaling just the basics shouldnt be a problem. And as for the rest of the products, well waiting a week isn't the end of the world.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Also,I believe it's possible to build a covid-19 safe ,pickup process. It's not at any reasonable cost for any stressing concept of “safe”, but any reasonable pickup process is probably going to be less of a public health risk than in-store shopping even with reasonable effort at maintaining social distancing and personal protection.

by nokcha 6y ago

mullingitover 6y ago

I understand, which is why I'm advocating closing down the cash registers to shunt staff into serving delivery and pickup orders. We shouldn't be incentivizing the population to pack into a single building because we're fetishizing the ritual of going to the checkout line. The checkout line should be lowest priority for staffing.

deadmetheny 6y ago
Shutting down registers and making the handful of regular checkers do delivery/pickup orders isn't tenable - the throughput isn't even close to similar. Putting together pickup/deliveries is very time consuming for traditional grocers. And then what happens when someone who doesn't have the ability to shop via app needs groceries? Do they call in, and take up another employee's bandwidth while they take down the list?
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > And then what happens when someone who doesn't have the ability to shop via app needs groceries? Do they call in, and take up another employee's bandwidth while they take down the list? Absolutely. An employee taking orders on the phone instead of working the cash register is an employee who's not getting exposed to coronavirus. I can't believe we're talking about unemployment going to the moon and at the same time saying we can't spare precious labor resources. Talking grocery orders over the phone is something anyone with a grade school education can do.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    It seems like you are assuming supermarkets can support the same number of customers if the reallocated their staff to pickup/delivery. As a shopper who knows what I want and where to get it, I might spend 15 minutes shopping at a minute at the register, and that doesn't count my drive to and from the store. With respect to unemployment, nobody is interestested in working at a super-market, especially when unemployment is pays 50% more [1]. Workers would quit if it did not disqualify them from unemployment [1] the average cashier salary is 30k/year (575/week) and the current unemployment benefit for the same salary is 875/ week when you include the additional $600 https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/cashier-grocery-store-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/cashier-gro... https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/ui-calculator.htm https://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/ui-calculator.htm

petra 6y ago

We have the same problem in Israel. So here when you order online, you don't get to choose items: you can only buy one standard list of products. Also,I believe it's possible to build a covid-19 safe ,pickup process. So scaling just the basics shouldnt be a problem. And as for the rest of the products, well waiting a week isn't the end of the world.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Also,I believe it's possible to build a covid-19 safe ,pickup process. It's not at any reasonable cost for any stressing concept of “safe”, but any reasonable pickup process is probably going to be less of a public health risk than in-store shopping even with reasonable effort at maintaining social distancing and personal protection.