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Having cashier machines that does not work offline is a bad idea. Closing almost all stores sounds expensive.
by rightbyte 5y ago
Having cashier machines that does not work offline is a bad idea. Closing almost all stores sounds expensive.
- swarnie_ 5y agoHow would you propose recording electronic payments and linking data back to restock/procurement while offline?
- atatatat 5y agoCouch/Pouch offline-first PWA Manual fallback option when the most predictable failure scenario happens (only backend server fails)
- rightbyte 5y agoLike they used to do it? Store the transactions locally and send them later. Taxis still do that with their terminals.
- gpm 5y agoA credit card imprinting machine [1], and paper records of inventory change that can be uploaded afterwards. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7wutgAlNHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7wutgAlNHk A few years ago, during a power outage, a stores clerk actually used one of these for/on me. I was pretty shocked ;)
- ceejayoz 5y agoMost of my cards don’t have embossed numbers these days.
- gpm 5y agoStrange, I think all credit (not debit) cards here do. Might be regional.
- kzrdude 5y agoIn sweden they don't - at least not on the debit cards, which are common. They also just removed the holder's signature field too, nobody ever uses that (it's authenticated with pin + optional ID).
- wrycoder 5y agoI'm in the US - my latest Mastercard has chip and stripe, but no embossing. The number, exp, and cvv are all on the backside.
- reaperducer 5y agoThe embossing is a convenience. The clerk writes the number in the space provided if there is no embossed number. They did the same thing in the 70's if your card was worn down. This is a solved problem.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago1. Require cash. 2. Have clerks write down what is needed on the shelfs.
- dijit 5y agoCash is incredibly rare in Sweden these days. But Swish (mobile payments) could work.
- DavidVoid 5y ago>1. Require cash. They'd have to make that very clear at the entrance to the store. This is just a guess, but I think most Swedes don't carry enough cash to even pay for groceries when they go shopping. I haven't had any paper money in years, just a few coins.
- swarnie_ 5y agoCash makes up less then 15% of transactions in my country. It would be less disruptive to just close the store.
- radiator 5y agoBut if the store in question would accept cash, then it could at least server some of its customers. I expect it would not only be 15% of the customers. I would add those customers who are, you know, a little capable of adapting to circumstances and would actually go to their ATM to pick up some cash if they don't have any in their wallet. If not, I guess they don't need those groceries so urgently.
- guerrilla 5y ago> go to their ATM I think you're underestimating how little we use cash. There aren't even ATMs in some parts of town and there are plenty of villages without one for tens of miles. Nobody uses cash anymore. It's all either debit cards or direct transfers (either via and app or the bank.)
- wrycoder 5y ago
- sschueller 5y agoThis is not that hard. Each store can keep a local record of what is going on. Back in the "dark ages" this was done anyway, credit card transactions were settled at the end of the day. Inventory at a physical location can be tracked locally and updates sent to a central system later to figure out what needs to be restocked where. Unlike other distributed databases you don't have one store selling an item of food from another store (especially if your online system is down) and need to do a split brain recomp.
- OskarS 5y agoEnough people rely on debit cards nowadays that only work online that it would still cause significant disruption. Enough that it's probably not worth keeping the stores open until it can be fixed.
- londons_explore 5y agoMany card machines can work 'online' but not using the stores own servers.
- guerrilla 5y agoI don't even know a single person with a credit card here. Everything is done with debit cards which require being online to check the balance and reject the transaction if it's insufficient.
- prepend 5y agoDistributed databases are cool. There are a couple of approaches that could involve multiple payment providers over redundant networks so switch to something else. For inventory, since it’s likely only temporary transactions can be stored locally and then synced when back online. Theoretically the design could be distributed all the time and just keep working the same while disconnected with some potential reorders and restocks slowed down or delayed. Or, you know, blockchain inventory or something.
- Scoundreller 5y agoThe payment terminals should work in non-integrated mode. Every restaurant does this. Could even do offline simple verification of payment with the debit/credit happening at a later time.
- moogly 5y ago> Every restaurant does this. I think you'll find that it varies throughout the world. In Sweden, I've been to a couple of restaurants when their payment network was down and had it not been for them also being hooked up to the Swish app (which is connected to a separate payment network), no one during those lunch seatings would've been able to pay at all (both of these were cash-less restaurants, which are super common in Sweden, where almost no one uses cash anymore, sadly*). Just to give you a picture of how seldom we come into contact with cash here: The Swedish Central Bank redesigned the artwork and form factor of the hard currency here, I think even introduced some new denominations, back in 2015. 6 years later, I still haven't seen or touched one of these new bills or coins out in the wild. That's how much people use cash here. *: I may lament it, but I'm the same. It's so damn convenient, but I am of course aware of the drawbacks.
- wrycoder 5y agoCouldn't they still just write down the transaction details, get a signature, and process later?
- moogly 5y agoThat's a traditional payment system where you hand off your card to some waiter who then sketchily takes off with it and does who-knows-what with it and returns it along with your receipt. The modern ones have these portable card terminals that are chip+PIN only. These customers would have to come back another day to pay.
- wrycoder 5y agoMy peer comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27722910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27722910
- kzrdude 5y agoIt's only 800 stores :)
- guerrilla 5y agoThat would be more than the number actually branded as Coop which is 665 [1] so yeah that'd be all of them plus some of their acquisitions like the 165 Nettos [2]. Sweden is a country of only 10 million by the way. [1]. https://www.coop.se/butiker-erbjudanden/vara-butiker/ https://www.coop.se/butiker-erbjudanden/vara-butiker/ [2]. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_Butiker_%26_Stormarknader https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_Butiker_%26_Stormarknader
- kzrdude 5y agoThe netto branding has been removed, in all places I have seen
- AtNightWeCode 5y agoIn Sweden pretty much everything is done online in these kind of businesses. And I don't think you can do it in another way since it is a bit of franchise model.
- dehrmann 5y agoAlmost every transaction at a place like this will be with a card. I'm not even sure if most Swedes have enough cash on them to deal with with.
- wasmitnetzen 5y agoAnecdata, but I live in Sweden and haven't touched cash in well over a year.
- egman_ekki 5y agoAnecdata 2, same in Denmark, I've lived here more than 5 years and have seen local cash maybe once.
- alkonaut 5y agoI don’t even know which denominations our cash uses now. For example is there a 100 bill or was it replaced with the 200? But as we see here it doesn’t matter whether I use cash since stores close when the systems go offline anyway. I doubt they’d even set up a cash fallback if this continues for months.
- ElViajero 5y agoThat is surprising, most Swedes have to use cash when they go to Spain for holidays. But, I guess that this pandemic year checks out. :)
- brabel 5y agoSweden uses Krona, Spain uses Euro. You might have a few Euro laying around for when you travel (most likely you just get some at the airport just before boarding to Spain), but in Sweden Euro is almost useless.
- anoncake 5y agoAt least in Germany, cards also work offline if necessary.
- einarfd 5y agoIt's not given that the cashier machines are the reason they are staying closed. Coop has a database that maps all items they sell to the corresponding price. What if they aren't sure about the integrity of it, and the possible offline copies that the stores have. That would be a very good reason to keep closed. After all, you wouldn't want to sell steak for the price of potatoes. It isn't that long since i've seen Norwegian cashier machines running in offline mode. While Norway isn't Sweden. I'm under the impression that our payments systems are almost identical.