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I was thinking the other day, if stores are shutting down in San Francisco to avoid shoplifters, will they switch to purely online ordering, or like some existi
by prawn 5y ago
I was thinking the other day, if stores are shutting down in San Francisco to avoid shoplifters, will they switch to purely online ordering, or like some existing stores where you order from a front desk and the picking/packing is done by warehouse staff. I remember using a department store about 8 years ago in Edinburgh that operated like that.
And if humans aren't walking the aisles, will we see a change in product packaging to focus on shipping and picking/packing efficiencies rather than shelf appeal?
- helsinkiandrew 5y agoStore was probably Argos? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer) Still going - but an increasing % of their sales are online.
- prawn 5y agoI think it probably was - rings a bell. We were buying a child's care seat. I remember going there, flicking through a catalogue in a waiting room, placing an order and paying at the counter, and then waiting until it was brought to us. Seemed novel at the time, to us Australians. Major retailers here have click-and-collect but I don't think it was common 8 years ago. A big hardware store like Bunnings only started selling online in 2018, I think.
- helsinkiandrew 5y agoRemarkably Argos has been going with the same catalogue model for 50 years.
- shireboy 5y ago...and then an industry of hacking warehouses and delivery drones for fun and profit crops up.
- dharmab 5y agoThe "employee picks products for you" system is how most stores worked before the modern supermarket was invented.
- reggieband 5y agoIt's also how every supermarket in the neighbourhood in Barcelona I lived in worked. You could either buy pre-packaged produce (like two apples in a styrofoam based covered in plastic) or go to the produce section and point at what you wanted and an attendant would place it in a bag, weigh it and put a sticker on it which would scan at the register. Another thing I hated about many European supermarkets were the one-way gates at the entrance (like subway turnstiles) and the only exists through the registers. Walmart started doing similar during Covid but at least you could exit through self-checkout.
- Dracophoenix 5y agoLooks like we're reinventing ourselves, just like with timesharing/the cloud.
- SilverRed 5y agoI wonder if this means we could reduce the amount of packaging and ink used. And just stuff products in brown boxes without the need for reflective inks and plastic viewing window.