4 ms·

At this point it would be better if they moved back to pre-self-service stores, and have the product behind a counter, and store clerks that will get you what y

At this point it would be better if they moved back to pre-self-service stores, and have the product behind a counter, and store clerks that will get you what you ask. As things are now, it’s the worse of both worlds: you still need a clerk to get the product, but instead of once, you need to buzz and wait once per aisle. A byproduct of this is that the smash and grabs would decrease, as there is no direct access to the product. Or to put it differently, maybe the format of stores where the product is all available and you can walk out freely was chosen because it decreased costs, even accounting for lossage. Now that lossage has increased, they should rethink the format.

welshwelsh 4y ago
Making employees manually fetch products is not a solution. That's way too labor intensive, and there's no excuse to make people waste their time doing menial labor like that in today's world. I like what Amazon has in their Fresh stores, where you use a credit card to enter and an automated system tracks what you take and sends you the bill.
- tbatchelli 4y ago
  My argument is not wether this was optimal by any metric; my argument is that they are already having employers go around the store opening cabinets, many times multiple times for the same customer. That incurs in the same menial work as having everything behind the counter, and is also a worse experience (at least for me). Can’t comment on the Amazon Fresh approach. Not sure if the costs are lower, for example. It could be that they are operating at a huge loss already.
StrictDabbler 4y ago
That is the new model. You order on the app and pick up your items or have them delivered. The other day I visited a target and half the merchandise was behind plastic walls. I walked right back out and they lost a few hundred dollars in sales, but the pick-up/delivery employees have their own keys to those plastic doors. Eventually every store will just be an Amazon warehouse. The economic pressure (and by extension, ecological pressure) is simply in that direction.

welshwelsh 4y ago

Making employees manually fetch products is not a solution. That's way too labor intensive, and there's no excuse to make people waste their time doing menial labor like that in today's world. I like what Amazon has in their Fresh stores, where you use a credit card to enter and an automated system tracks what you take and sends you the bill.

tbatchelli 4y ago
My argument is not wether this was optimal by any metric; my argument is that they are already having employers go around the store opening cabinets, many times multiple times for the same customer. That incurs in the same menial work as having everything behind the counter, and is also a worse experience (at least for me). Can’t comment on the Amazon Fresh approach. Not sure if the costs are lower, for example. It could be that they are operating at a huge loss already.

StrictDabbler 4y ago

That is the new model. You order on the app and pick up your items or have them delivered. The other day I visited a target and half the merchandise was behind plastic walls. I walked right back out and they lost a few hundred dollars in sales, but the pick-up/delivery employees have their own keys to those plastic doors. Eventually every store will just be an Amazon warehouse. The economic pressure (and by extension, ecological pressure) is simply in that direction.