5 ms·

It's an ad platform plain and simple; that's the whole value proposition. So I imagine every pitch, every meeting was about that. And every store that uses it w

It's an ad platform plain and simple; that's the whole value proposition. So I imagine every pitch, every meeting was about that. And every store that uses it will be doing it to get a cut of the ad revenue. It's true that it's lousy at being glass, but that's like saying smallpox blankets were a lousy way to make friends with Native Americans. The shittiness of it, in other words, was the goal all along, and any resemblance to glass or to helping you in any way was just a concession made to conceal its true nature and hopefully get you to accept it.

mrobins 5y ago
Except that moving inventory, and to a lesser extent generating repeat business, is more critical than ancillary ad revenue. If The screens don’t work or the ads aren’t effective, and I don’t open the door to get those high-margin also-bought drinks than they definitely do not achieve the store’s goal.
- jcims 5y ago
  The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. Now the store gets a cut of an ad and the profit from the sale it makes. The digital delivery is going to be amazing for A/B testing of ads because they are going to have near immediate feedback. It's pretty clever in a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
  - buu700 5y ago
    Counterpoint: all else being equal, I'd rather not have these because I think they'd be annoying, so if one of my local grocery stores were to install them I would then give more of my business to the other (largely interchangeable) ones going forward. You're right that I wouldn't rage quit and leave without doing my shopping the first time I saw these, but I also might not be back. Sure, I'd learn to live with it if every grocery store were to get on board, but in that scenario not having them would become a major competitive advantage.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      Some people really care about pricing, others don't. There are 'bargin' stores in my area, and higher end stores. The higher end stores have lots more bio stuff to buy, and other fancy goods, but also stock major brands of everything else. Even though the product is the same, the pricing is 15% average more expensive for those common products. I suspect they get away with it, because you're already there, and I never see a full shopping cart there. The also have baggers. The bargin store does not. My point? The bargin store might shave even more off, with enough ads. And those people buying full carts? Might be even happier with the savings. I think as with many things, those struggling with money can't care one iota (not don't, but can't), and just do what saves the most, no matter the cost to society, or themselves. Survival first. Rent first. Savings first.
      - buu700 5y ago
        Makes sense. As I said, all else being equal I'd rather not have these. Presented with a situation like Kindle devices, in which the ad-supported item is cheaper, the choice is a little harder. Thinking more about the product, there's probably also a long-term vision wherein it becomes more useful than it is today. e.g. maybe it automatically handles tracking quantities and greys out the item photo when it's out (and alerts them to restock), shows prices in a more user-friendly way than regular shelves, makes promotions more prominent (but hopefully not too obnoxious), slightly reduces labor costs (by automatically updating prices), and allows various user interactivity such as clicking an item to see metadata like nutrition and ingredients. It's easy to make fun of something at an early stage when we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but 10 years from now this may become a repeat of the infamous Dropbox thread.
        extrapickles 5y ago
        You can buy eink shelf labels that have radios in them for the self updating pricing and promotional pricing features. Not sure if they make ones that can handle being in fridge/freezer though (condensation is huge problem in those environments).
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. " This isn't really how it works. If it worked that way then lighting, music, display organization, cleanliness, shelf space, brand, packaging etc. 'would not matter'. All of those things matter, immensely, at any real scale. The kinds of comments I'm seeing here are a little bit uncomfortable in this regard, indicate a kind of lack of self-awareness as to consumer (i.e. our own) behaviours. This is just one of any number of studies [1] THE EFFECT OF SHELF DISPLAY ON PURCHASING DECISION "The final results show that, even though the students know that they should act like rational buyers who choose products according to their intrinsic value, when describing how they act in real situations, they admit to behaving differently, in the sense that they are influenced in one way or another by marketing policies ..." This is not revelatory or controversial, we've known this for a long time. These 'fancy displays' have a very obvious advantage purely in terms of their clarity and impact, and of course the reduce pain of having to constantly tweak tags and pricing. Distracting advertising and any kind of privacy invasion would be a drawback obviously. As would possibly the cost. But this looks like a really obvious opportunity to test for retail. My worry would be not so much any of the stated issues here, but that there would be a new kind of war for retail space and that brands would bid on the size of their placements on the screen, as opposed to their slot on the shelf. Just ugly and unnecessary operational overhead. [1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjPvuCmlLTxAhVoUt8KHfI4CecQFjACegQIAhAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fedepot.wur.nl%2F369091&usg=AOvVaw1zxH0F2X8777BOAY2d6w0k https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
    - hedora 5y ago
      I suspect the downvotes are because your comment could be shortened to “My worry here is that this will inconvenience the marketing drones, distracting them from maximizing our suffering as they burn the planet down”. (Upvoted; thanks for the insightful comment.)
      - jollybean 5y ago
        I don't think my comment could be shortened to that because the primary thrust points to the nature of how people react to in-store presentation and how that affects us. Almost all of the commentary on this board is missing 'the most obvious points' from a consumer retail perspective. Issues such as privacy, invasive advertising are obviously relevant, but if we are 'thinking retail' this is going to be about shopping experience and operational overhead. In terms of impact, experience, clarity and reducing labour input costs - it really has so many upsides. Far from being a 'bad joke' ... just the opposite it's a pretty neat concept. This is not fodder, it's very possibly the future.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  Also these screens are a great target for anarchists.
legutierr 5y ago
There are cameras built into the doors, and one of the images in the Twitter thread shows heat maps being displayed on the screens, presumably conveying information about what the consumers were looking at on the screens. Ads may not have been the only value proposition here, in other words. Data that can be used to improve merchandising may be equally valuable.
LeftHandPath 5y ago
I could see one case where it does make sense - stores after the gate in airports, where there are more people walking by and seeing the advertising than there are customers coming in looking for a specific product. In any place like a grocery store where customers have clearly come in looking for specific items, it makes zero sense.
- megablast 5y ago
  Yes, and it can update the prices for different customers flying in from India or the USA.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Straw Buyer As A Service for an airport soda and chips.
downandout 5y ago
I would imagine that the other benefit to this besides advertising is dynamic pricing. The prices are listed on the screen, and can thus be updated at will. They might raise the price of a bottle of Coke with the temperature outside, for example. Doing this with old school price tags requires manual labor. This would be much easier.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Why not just charge the existing products for access to premium shelf space and classify that as advertising revenue? I don't see the point of putting ads in between the customer and what was already effectively an ad (i.e. the packaging/product itself).
- nine_k 5y ago
  Brands already bid for shelf placement. Think about ads being contextual, e.g. for complementary products, or unrelated to the products inside at all but briefly reminding about new stuff, promotions, sales, etc. Imagine thus screen showing navigation help ("where is milk?"), product data("is it sugar-free?") and other such things momentarily.
imgabe 5y ago
We’ll just have to wait for Apple to purchase a premium grocery chain and rebrand it as an ad-free, privacy-respecting grocery store. Too bad Whole Foods is already taken.
lobocinza 5y ago
They will get a cut in the ad revenue and in their number of customers.

mrobins 5y ago

Except that moving inventory, and to a lesser extent generating repeat business, is more critical than ancillary ad revenue. If The screens don’t work or the ads aren’t effective, and I don’t open the door to get those high-margin also-bought drinks than they definitely do not achieve the store’s goal.

jcims 5y ago
The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. Now the store gets a cut of an ad and the profit from the sale it makes. The digital delivery is going to be amazing for A/B testing of ads because they are going to have near immediate feedback. It's pretty clever in a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
- buu700 5y ago
  Counterpoint: all else being equal, I'd rather not have these because I think they'd be annoying, so if one of my local grocery stores were to install them I would then give more of my business to the other (largely interchangeable) ones going forward. You're right that I wouldn't rage quit and leave without doing my shopping the first time I saw these, but I also might not be back. Sure, I'd learn to live with it if every grocery store were to get on board, but in that scenario not having them would become a major competitive advantage.
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    Some people really care about pricing, others don't. There are 'bargin' stores in my area, and higher end stores. The higher end stores have lots more bio stuff to buy, and other fancy goods, but also stock major brands of everything else. Even though the product is the same, the pricing is 15% average more expensive for those common products. I suspect they get away with it, because you're already there, and I never see a full shopping cart there. The also have baggers. The bargin store does not. My point? The bargin store might shave even more off, with enough ads. And those people buying full carts? Might be even happier with the savings. I think as with many things, those struggling with money can't care one iota (not don't, but can't), and just do what saves the most, no matter the cost to society, or themselves. Survival first. Rent first. Savings first.
    - buu700 5y ago
      Makes sense. As I said, all else being equal I'd rather not have these. Presented with a situation like Kindle devices, in which the ad-supported item is cheaper, the choice is a little harder. Thinking more about the product, there's probably also a long-term vision wherein it becomes more useful than it is today. e.g. maybe it automatically handles tracking quantities and greys out the item photo when it's out (and alerts them to restock), shows prices in a more user-friendly way than regular shelves, makes promotions more prominent (but hopefully not too obnoxious), slightly reduces labor costs (by automatically updating prices), and allows various user interactivity such as clicking an item to see metadata like nutrition and ingredients. It's easy to make fun of something at an early stage when we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but 10 years from now this may become a repeat of the infamous Dropbox thread.
      - extrapickles 5y ago
        You can buy eink shelf labels that have radios in them for the self updating pricing and promotional pricing features. Not sure if they make ones that can handle being in fridge/freezer though (condensation is huge problem in those environments).
- jollybean 5y ago
  "The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. " This isn't really how it works. If it worked that way then lighting, music, display organization, cleanliness, shelf space, brand, packaging etc. 'would not matter'. All of those things matter, immensely, at any real scale. The kinds of comments I'm seeing here are a little bit uncomfortable in this regard, indicate a kind of lack of self-awareness as to consumer (i.e. our own) behaviours. This is just one of any number of studies [1] THE EFFECT OF SHELF DISPLAY ON PURCHASING DECISION "The final results show that, even though the students know that they should act like rational buyers who choose products according to their intrinsic value, when describing how they act in real situations, they admit to behaving differently, in the sense that they are influenced in one way or another by marketing policies ..." This is not revelatory or controversial, we've known this for a long time. These 'fancy displays' have a very obvious advantage purely in terms of their clarity and impact, and of course the reduce pain of having to constantly tweak tags and pricing. Distracting advertising and any kind of privacy invasion would be a drawback obviously. As would possibly the cost. But this looks like a really obvious opportunity to test for retail. My worry would be not so much any of the stated issues here, but that there would be a new kind of war for retail space and that brands would bid on the size of their placements on the screen, as opposed to their slot on the shelf. Just ugly and unnecessary operational overhead. [1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjPvuCmlLTxAhVoUt8KHfI4CecQFjACegQIAhAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fedepot.wur.nl%2F369091&usg=AOvVaw1zxH0F2X8777BOAY2d6w0k https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
  - hedora 5y ago
    I suspect the downvotes are because your comment could be shortened to “My worry here is that this will inconvenience the marketing drones, distracting them from maximizing our suffering as they burn the planet down”. (Upvoted; thanks for the insightful comment.)
    - jollybean 5y ago
      I don't think my comment could be shortened to that because the primary thrust points to the nature of how people react to in-store presentation and how that affects us. Almost all of the commentary on this board is missing 'the most obvious points' from a consumer retail perspective. Issues such as privacy, invasive advertising are obviously relevant, but if we are 'thinking retail' this is going to be about shopping experience and operational overhead. In terms of impact, experience, clarity and reducing labour input costs - it really has so many upsides. Far from being a 'bad joke' ... just the opposite it's a pretty neat concept. This is not fodder, it's very possibly the future.
CameronNemo 5y ago
Also these screens are a great target for anarchists.

legutierr 5y ago

There are cameras built into the doors, and one of the images in the Twitter thread shows heat maps being displayed on the screens, presumably conveying information about what the consumers were looking at on the screens. Ads may not have been the only value proposition here, in other words. Data that can be used to improve merchandising may be equally valuable.

LeftHandPath 5y ago

I could see one case where it does make sense - stores after the gate in airports, where there are more people walking by and seeing the advertising than there are customers coming in looking for a specific product. In any place like a grocery store where customers have clearly come in looking for specific items, it makes zero sense.

megablast 5y ago
Yes, and it can update the prices for different customers flying in from India or the USA.
- brewdad 5y ago
  Straw Buyer As A Service for an airport soda and chips.

downandout 5y ago

I would imagine that the other benefit to this besides advertising is dynamic pricing. The prices are listed on the screen, and can thus be updated at will. They might raise the price of a bottle of Coke with the temperature outside, for example. Doing this with old school price tags requires manual labor. This would be much easier.

fighterpilot 5y ago

Why not just charge the existing products for access to premium shelf space and classify that as advertising revenue? I don't see the point of putting ads in between the customer and what was already effectively an ad (i.e. the packaging/product itself).

nine_k 5y ago
Brands already bid for shelf placement. Think about ads being contextual, e.g. for complementary products, or unrelated to the products inside at all but briefly reminding about new stuff, promotions, sales, etc. Imagine thus screen showing navigation help ("where is milk?"), product data("is it sugar-free?") and other such things momentarily.

imgabe 5y ago

We’ll just have to wait for Apple to purchase a premium grocery chain and rebrand it as an ad-free, privacy-respecting grocery store. Too bad Whole Foods is already taken.

lobocinza 5y ago

They will get a cut in the ad revenue and in their number of customers.