2 ms·

I'd be curious to know how costly or inefficient it would be to just have a counter where you ordered and paid and were handed your stuff from the back. That wo

I'd be curious to know how costly or inefficient it would be to just have a counter where you ordered and paid and were handed your stuff from the back. That would eliminate theft, but they'd need more staff to keep throughout and would probably sell less per customer, and I dont know what it would do to brands. Do you ask for bandaids or name brand adhesive bandages or what? Anyway, I assume they must think that even with theft the present system is better.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Prior to the emergence of the first Piggly Wiggly self-service super market in 1916, this is how grocery stores operated. Widespread development of this model occurred over several decades as I understand. Wikipedia mentions that shoplifting was a concern, but that increased volume and efficiency more than made up for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly Smithsonian has an article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bizarre-story-piggly-wiggly-first-self-service-grocery-store-180964708/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bizarre-story-pigg... There have been stores which operated on a similar basis until fairly recently. "Consumers Distributors" operated as catalogue-warehouse stores --- customers would enter the physical market, select items from a catalogue, submit that order at a counter, where the goods were retrieved from an employee-only warehouse area. Within current grocery stores, the counter concept is still retained, often for high-value or certain fresh products: pharmacy, meat/deli counter, fish counter, and bakery, especially. Your comment on brands is highly appropos. The development of self-serivce groceries also lead to a revolution in marketing and packaging. Rather than bulk and largely generic goods (flour, sugar, lard, eggs, meat, biscuits, etc.) specific branded and generally prepared products were developed, with packaging and advertising an integral part of their distribution and marketing. A retreat from self-service retail would likely have a similar impact, though precisely how this functions would depend on how this is implemented. Stores in high-crime areas might return to the original clerk/retrieval model, an online request/pick-up, self-service electronic kiosks, voice-recognition systems, or any of a number of concepts. An online catalogue vending would likely retain more branding aspects, in-store requests might not. Characteristics of the served community and their access and/or willingness to use online methods or banking services would also be a factor. Theft modes would also likley change. Presumably, payment fraud, possibly strong-arming at the counter, or interdiction of either wholesale or retail deliveries (to and from the store respectively).

dredmorbius 5y ago

Prior to the emergence of the first Piggly Wiggly self-service super market in 1916, this is how grocery stores operated. Widespread development of this model occurred over several decades as I understand. Wikipedia mentions that shoplifting was a concern, but that increased volume and efficiency more than made up for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly Smithsonian has an article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bizarre-story-piggly-wiggly-first-self-service-grocery-store-180964708/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bizarre-story-pigg... There have been stores which operated on a similar basis until fairly recently. "Consumers Distributors" operated as catalogue-warehouse stores --- customers would enter the physical market, select items from a catalogue, submit that order at a counter, where the goods were retrieved from an employee-only warehouse area. Within current grocery stores, the counter concept is still retained, often for high-value or certain fresh products: pharmacy, meat/deli counter, fish counter, and bakery, especially. Your comment on brands is highly appropos. The development of self-serivce groceries also lead to a revolution in marketing and packaging. Rather than bulk and largely generic goods (flour, sugar, lard, eggs, meat, biscuits, etc.) specific branded and generally prepared products were developed, with packaging and advertising an integral part of their distribution and marketing. A retreat from self-service retail would likely have a similar impact, though precisely how this functions would depend on how this is implemented. Stores in high-crime areas might return to the original clerk/retrieval model, an online request/pick-up, self-service electronic kiosks, voice-recognition systems, or any of a number of concepts. An online catalogue vending would likely retain more branding aspects, in-store requests might not. Characteristics of the served community and their access and/or willingness to use online methods or banking services would also be a factor. Theft modes would also likley change. Presumably, payment fraud, possibly strong-arming at the counter, or interdiction of either wholesale or retail deliveries (to and from the store respectively).