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Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and Seattle

280 points by taubek 4y ago

onetokeoverthe 4y ago
[dead]
nkotov 4y ago
I had a really positive experience visiting when they first opened up in Seattle. Felt like the future. Wish they started to outfit the Whole Foods all over more with them.
Laaas 4y ago
Is this because of shoplifting? In that case, an innovative (dystopian?) solution would be to place AI-guided water cannons to shoot thieves.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Yes. If it was anything else they’d mention it.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    They do mention it. They simply don’t let people in who don’t already have an account with them: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/22/16920784/amazon-go-cashier-less-grocery-store-seattle-shoplifting-punishment-detection https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/22/16920784/amazon-go-cashie...
    - fmajid 4y ago
      Because people who routinely steal stuff will draw the line at jumping over a turnstile /s
      - EGreg 4y ago
        Fine then make a rotating door or other thing you can’t jump over!
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    Eh? In principle these should be less vulnerable to shoplifting than a normal convenience store with automatic checkouts. It's more likely just because, well, it's not clearly better than a normal convenience store with automatic checkouts.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  Full height turnstiles activated by a digital ID would reduce this problem to a manageable level
  - Laaas 4y ago
    Indeed, it makes you wonder why this is not the case already. It does not seem like an especially hard thing to do. It makes you wonder why they decided this was a good idea in the first place. Seemed sort of obvious that they'd have a shoplifting problem in a region where it's already not too uncommon. Perhaps they assumed the surveillance would deter thieves, but surveillance is only a deterrence if the local police can afford to enforce the law effectively.
novia 4y ago
I'm really bummed about this! I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. I don't live in NYC or San Fran or Seattle, but I'd hoped these stores would spread.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  I never went into one of those stores, but I'm down in Florida, and my apartment building has what they call a "sundry shop". It's connected to the main office but it's 24 hours - you get in with an electronic key. It's like a little convenience store, like a corner store in NYC. But the checkout is self-service, and there's a camera. It's amazing, I love it.
  - danpalmer 4y ago
    My grandparents used to live in a small village (rural U.K.). The village shop was tiny, just a few shelves and a fridge with basics. No checkout, no cameras, often no volunteer (definitely no paid staff). They just wrote down what they took in a little book and paid at the end of the month. In small enough groups where there is a good sense of community it’s amazing what can work.
    - seneca 4y ago
      It doesn't really even have to be all that small, just high trust. There are road-side produce stands that run on the honor system all over the rural American southeast. They have no idea who will show up. Many are on country highways, even.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. So, basically something a vending machine could provide? We've had those since like the '50s, except without computer vision, user tracking and machine learning. I don't know why Amazon was trying to reinvent the wheel here in the most expensive way possible.
endisneigh 4y ago
Amazon Go seems incredibly overengineered. Why is this superior than a portable scanning plus toggleable RFIDs that disable items on scan and alarm gates? Cameras everywhere and computer vision seems overkill.
- chrischen 4y ago
  In the midwest we have a giant store called Woodman's that just does low-tech self-checkout lanes and 24-hour stores... Self-checkout is just you doing the scanning and paying yourself... Aside from a high-precision scale and one worker for all of the self-checkout lanes (to assist in errors), it's more or less honor system that just works for the most part.
  - leesalminen 4y ago
    My mother-in-law operates the self-checkout lanes at a Kroger brand store in the midwest. The honor system definitely does not work there. Shoplifting is through the roof over the past couple years. It's gotten so bad that management is debating shutting off the self-checkout lanes. A few months ago she was pepper sprayed after confronting a shoplifter who had an entire cart of things, but only scanned and paid for 3. Then last month, someone came in and just wheeled out the entire tobacco shelving unit with a dolly. These are just a couple egregious examples. We hear other shoplifting stories from her every week. The police don't respond to shoplifting calls anymore, and the thieves know it. Employees are now instructed to not confront shoplifters in any way after she got pepper sprayed. It's a total free for all. My mother-in-law estimates the theft to be $10,000 per day at her store.
    - thakoppno 4y ago
      > $10,000 per day at her store. That seems intolerably high but I’ve never worked a day in a grocery store. Do grocery stores generate enough revenue to sustain? Fifty two-hundred dollar carts of cash is a lot to let go.
      - 4y ago
kentosi 4y ago
Slightly misleading title. They're closing 8 of their stores across NYC, SF, etc, and this is after they just opened a few more across the US.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  And according to Google Maps there are 9 Amazon Go stores in NYC right now, so this would still leave 7. Which is just business as usual, figuring out which stores in which locations turn out to be most profitable.
  - philistine 4y ago
    You're right, but it's weird for such a tech-focused company to close stores in such a fashion, because we're used to the giant margins of tech. Apple has never closed that many stores that quickly.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      Apple stores are famous for being some of the most profitable stores mankind has ever created. And there aren't that many of them. These Amazon stores are just local convenience stores. They're selling candy bars. And Amazon is a much more "experimental" company than Apple -- they launch and shut down stuff all the time to iterate and learn. This isn't about penny-pinching or margins, it's about finding product-market fit.
- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  That’s a completely misleading title then.
  - gowld 4y ago
    HN removes numbers from titles, as an anti-clickbait tactic, but it leads to errors like this.
- sosodev 4y ago
nomy99 4y ago
I shopped at their location at 30 rock. It was a mixed bag feeling. I was in awe of the technology, but at the same time I felt like I was being overly observed like in a prison.. I never went back, even though I work in the building.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  In basically every retail store, and especially grocery/convenience stores, you are being observed by security cameras at literally every second. In every aisle. This has been the case for decades. It's how they catch shoplifters. I rather like the fact it can be used for customer convenience now, rather than just punitively.
  - Someone1234 4y ago
    In typical stores (e.g. Walmart, Target, etc), most of those cameras housings don't contain cameras. The main issue isn't that cameras are expensive, it is that monitoring that many cameras is expensive/impractical, and automated theft detection systems are still in their infancy. So they just target high value/common areas, and rely on deterrents (like people believing they have a lot of cameras, off-duty cops at the door, and PR around some super secret new technology). Quite seriously: Stores really need to look into vending machines for certain items. In particular with how advanced Gift Card Theft-Clone-Return Activation fraud is. Thieves have message-boards not dissimilar to this where they can share "pro-tips," and things have become quite sophisticated.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      > most of those cameras housings don't contain cameras Do you have a source for that? Because at my local grocery store for example, above the customer service area they have a whole wall of TV's showing the live camera feeds. They're all working. My local convenience store has the live TV's too, by the cashier.
      - hotstickyballs 4y ago
doomrobo 4y ago
Likely relevant, NYC passed a law 3 years ago requiring stores to accept cash https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
  Amazon announced plans to begin accepting cash (and SNAP) at Go stores but I'm not sure how far it got https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/amazon-exec-tells-employees-that-go-stores-will-start-accepting-cash.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/amazon-exec-tells-employees-...
29athrowaway 4y ago
[flagged]
- kenjackson 4y ago
  Wow. Thanks for that link. That is eye opening.
bilsbie 4y ago
The right way to do this would be the concept of a giant vending machine. Keep the customers out of the store and bring the items to them.
- ElFitz 4y ago
  So… Amazon?
- joezydeco 4y ago
  Do you remember Service Merchandise?
qwertyuiop_ 4y ago
Despite these closures,the company will continue to open new Amazon Go stores, When asked why Amazon has decided to shutter the eight stores in Seattle, New York City and San Francisco, the spokesperson said that like with any retailer, Amazon periodically assesses its portfolio of stores and makes optimization decisions along the way. Theft
- themitigating 4y ago
  Except there will still be 7 stores in NYC and they didn't say theft.
nprateem 4y ago
I had to go to one to return a package. I couldn't get past the turnstiles because I don't use the app and don't know my password because I use a password manager. This meant I couldn't hand my parcel in at the counter. The woman on the turnstile wouldn't let me in even when I explained the situation. So she went off and got a scanner to take my package. She didn't offer a receipt, and when I asked for one said it wasn't possible to give me one. I checked my email, and nothing there either. So I had no evidence I'd actually returned my item and she just said something like "It's in the system and never makes a mistake" or some similar rubbish. While I was in there I saw several people walk just inside, faff around on their phones for 5 minutes then either give up or eventually get past the turnstiles. There's literally no benefit for customers unless you're shopping at busy times. So all in all an unmitigated disaster.
- thoughtpalette 4y ago
  YMMV. Was a big fan of the one in Chicago (I'm now remote). Never had any issues. Great selection of food/snacks/drinks. App always worked flawlessly.
- baumy 4y ago
  Seems like a very weird way of blaming a well defined system for your unwillingness to meet its prerequisites. It would take approximately a few minutes to discover that you need the app to get into the store and get that sorted. You are capable of this, just apparently too lazy or unwilling for some unclear reason. The return experience seems entirely orthogonal to the rest of the story here, and I'm not sure why you included it. For those of us who managed to download the app and login to it, walking into the store, grabbing something off a shelf and walking out was extremely convenient in a way unmatched by any other store. Calling it an unmitigated disaster in your situation is like calling a movie a failure because you couldn't be bothered to go to a theater and see it. Just bizarre.
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack. It's against the HN rules and you can make your substantive points without it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
epberry 4y ago
I think these were some of the first, smaller stores from Amazon Go and probably very expensive to operate. It makes sense the the larger stores with newer hardware would be better financially.
Razengan 4y ago
I've always wondered: Do we really need to put people in shops? We have had vending machines for centuries, most kinds of shops (that don't need a social aspect) could easily just be sealed warehouses with product dispensers dotted outside the walls.
- thfuran 4y ago
  There are very few items I would ever buy from such a store. You can't really get a good look at the items in a vending machine, and you can't put an item back.
  - Razengan 4y ago
    But for something you've always bought, the mundane daily items, you don't really need to check anything, same as with regular vending machines. Returns could be implemented.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      There’s at least one item I look at the nutrition facts for every time I go to the store. Even if the vast majority of my items are the same, it only takes one item where I have not memorized the nutrition facts to make that an inconvenience. Or any produce, where people like to judge quality and ripeness. And also, many people like to browse for new products. I guess it is possible, but it sounds like it’s all the disadvantages of Instacart with all of the disadvantages of going to the store.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      I don't want to buy bruised apples or cracked eggs or overripe melons. I'm not going to go to a second store just for, I don't know, milk and dish soap.
_8j50 4y ago
Amazon is such an anti-human company. From their warehouses to their tech workers they are terrible against people. That said, if people like these stores then good for them. I am honestly shocked and confused when people enjoy this. Or targeted ads or *GPT generated content. I am not anti-tech by any means. Maybe I am just not impressed and awed enough by these technologies to overlook the downsides? I don't support "all progress is good progress" mentality with tech. I find these cashierless stores lazy and needlessly compromising on privacy. Just have a man-trap (locking revolving door for the unaware) that lets you in after you scan a card or speak/type your amazon id and give shoppers a smart cart thay detects what you put in and use cameras only to enforce all items you take are put in the cart. That and facial recognition privacy protection will get me to go there (but hey, i order everything for delivery anyways). They can do better while protecting consumers but choose not to because of the precedent set allowing them to track movements on a store as a feature. So why can't this be used to keep you safe in apartment complexes, parking lots (car theives),etc... soon facial recognition will be id'ing me everywhere I go! The laws to protect people are nowhere near where they should be. So what are my choices? Move to the arctic and build an igloo?
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  >I am honestly shocked and confused when people enjoy this. Or targeted ads or *GPT generated content. I am not anti-tech by any means. Maybe I am just not impressed and awed enough by these technologies to overlook the downsides? Some people believe these are amazing things. They tell other people that these are amazing things, so more people believe it, or at least accept it as default. Whereas I look at these things and think I live in bizarro-world with how much other people seem to enjoy them.
- looping__lui 4y ago
  Much to my surprise, I genuinely loved the experience im the Amazon Go stores. I was super skeptical, but it is really convenient. I didn’t know how much I hate checkout lines or self-service checkout counters until I visited an Amazon Go store. Amazon also owns Ring which can be used to protect your home (although it’s certainly less sophisticated). I own a Ring home security system and I’m very fond of it. Same for my parents when they go for their vacation home - big game changer for their ease of mind. Now, I’m not super fond of how Ring shared footage without consent in some countries with authorities; but it’s probably the company I trust most with my personal data footage etc. And I deem them more capable in protecting my data.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
Is there, anywhere, a list of the exact stores that will be closed?
Overtonwindow 4y ago
It likely came down to the location, the technology, or the price. Was there shrinkage?
neckardt 4y ago
I walk past an amazon go store on my way to work. It's super convenient if I need something, I can be in and out within less than 30 seconds. The problem is I rarely have anything I need to buy on my commute.
fmajid 4y ago
So they are closing all 4 stores in San Francisco. Makes sense given how downtown where all 4 were has turned into a ghost town, and the generalized lawlessness and pillage with impunity by shoplifters can't have helped.
bogomipz 4y ago
Relatedly, this announcement came on the same day they announced they were pausing the second phase of their HQ2 development in Virginia: https://www.fastcompany.com/90860480/amazon-hq2-construction-pause-mass-layoffs-washington-dc https://www.fastcompany.com/90860480/amazon-hq2-construction... This is significant in that the HQ2 bidding process was basically a competition by local governments to see who could give Amazon the largest tax breaks and other incentives so that Amazon would choose their city as the site its location. See: https://www.brookings.edu/research/five-economic-development-takeaways-from-the-amazon-hq2-bids/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/five-economic-development...
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
I used to visit one of the NYC the Go stores daily until covid happened. It was cute and surgically clean, worked wonderfully, and their inventory management was much better then CVS and Duane Reade which often sell out of things and have empty shelves for days. But nobody ever went there - no matter what time of the day I went, there would be one person doing inventory and stocking, two people standing by to help people install the Go app on their phones and explain the concept, and myself. Occasionally one other person being helped to install the app. I think the issue was that everything there except Coca-Cola and Arizona tea cost significantly more then any of the surrounding stores, and if you hate quinoa you were SOL because it was in everything except drinks and sushi. If you are paying two thirds of your income or more on a Manhattan apartment you probably couldn’t afford to eat routinely from the Go store. Then Covid happened. I really hate the guy who decided to put quinoa in everything. Because of that I only ever bought drinks there.
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  There's nothing wrong with quinoa. Makes excellent insulation or packaging material. Some crazy bastards will even try and eat it.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  Putting quinoa in everything and assuming the addressable market had more disposable income seems like one of the signs of the last bubble.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Why are people so weird about food? What about quinoa made it associated with rich yuppies? If you didn’t already know you would probably assume the main consumers would be dudes who want their chicken and carb to have even more protein.
    - swatcoder 4y ago
      Food choice being a proxy and signal for class/culture is nothing new. You’d be hard pressed to find a cultural tradition that doesn’t speak to it. While everyone needs sustenance, there are often several adequate choices about how to get it and making those choices become a way of communicating to others. And communicating is an defining and seemingly valuable part of being human. It’s not really weird and it’s not going anywhere.
jstummbillig 4y ago
I have actually had a very positive experience with cashier-less shopping – albeit not with Amazon Go and in the EU. As of now, it's been heavily benefited from never having to wait in a line (because the vast majority of people will still opt for the cashier lanes) but I actually found the UX (which in my case always included scanning of products like a cashier would) actually quite delightful and surprisingly never had any issues. I can totally see this scaling quite nicely, considering stores will have to employ less personal, even if it it requires some additional store space, and I would be mildly surprised if cashiers were still a thing in 10 years. It increasingly seems like a job no one should be doing, in a combination of "bad for your health", "a waste of of human resources in a world where they are becoming rapidly scarce" and "boring" and I don't think they will, in the not so far future. What are other experiences?
- rpadovani 4y ago
  In Italy, it has been years, if not decades, that in a chain of large supermarkets there is a system where, when you enter the supermarket, you can pick up a barcode reader. While you are doing your shopping, you scan your products. At the exit, you scan a QR code to end the shopping, you pay, and off you go. The huge advantage, apart from no queues, is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it way, way quicker. You can have a “random” check where everything will be scanned again by a real cashier.
  - jstummbillig 4y ago
    > is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it way, way quicker. I don't understand the mechanics. You need to put the physical item back and also remove it from the barcode reader, no?
    - rpadovani 4y ago
      No, that's the fancy part. You pick up a barcode reader at the entrance, something like [0]. When you pick something from the shelf, you scan it, and put in the cart. You don't remove the stuff from the cart until your car, so you can already fill up your bags in the cart! [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Barcode-scanner.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Barcode-...
mabbo 4y ago
I hope this doesn't signal the end of the entire business model. I know there are still speed bumps and problems to address, but cashier in a convenience store is one of those awful jobs I don't think anyone should have to do if we can avoid it. I've had plenty of friends and family work those jobs, and briefly did it myself (at a gas station). Often these friends worked overnight, with the risk of being held up at 3am when no one is around. Usually it's just standing around waiting for a customer, with occasional chores to be done. And it always pays as little as legally possible. Let's destroy this job.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  Cashier jobs are entry level positions. As such they are also a means of advancement to other roles in retail. Countless people started as cashier and worked their way up to roles like customer services, buyer, store manager etc. These jobs are also an opportunity for students to earn money and get work experience. But yes, "Let's destroy this job" simply because you don't like it? Since your profile states you are a staff developer at Shopify, here's a Shopify link that outlines the value that the role of cashier brings to a retail environment: https://www.shopify.com/retail/retail-jobs-common-positions https://www.shopify.com/retail/retail-jobs-common-positions
  - wetpaws 4y ago
    This is a fallacy imo. The less mundane, mindnumbing and highly automated jobs we have, the better. There is a reason why for example living human beings do not manually switch phone lines anymore when you make a phone call - you could rationalize it as much as you can, but frankly humans we born for better stuff.
    - bogomipz 4y ago
      If you are going to state something is fallacy then you might want to substantiate the fallacy. Instead all you provide is your opinion that the elimination of a class of jobs is for "the better." What I have stated is that entry level positions are a means of advancement in retail environments. This based on empirical fact. >"There is a reason why for example living human beings do not manually switch phone lines anymore when you make a phone call" No, the reason "human beings do not manually switch phone lines anymore" is because the growth of subscriber lines exceeded the capacity for manual switching in Central Offices. It had nothing to do with nature of the job.
mikeflynn 4y ago
They just opened an Amazon Go store in LA (Woodland Hills) at the beginning of the year. From my unscientific sample of personal visits it seems to be getting decent traffic, is well run, and is a much nicer place to quickly grab something on a walk over a gas station or a market that only takes cash. For whatever reason there's also a Whole Foods and an Amazon Fresh near by as well. Woodland Hills is well stocked with Amazon retail!
Scuds 4y ago
They built a Go store into their office in Bellevue,WA - it's got the freezers and shelves but it hasn't opened. They built a Four Star store into their HQ in Seattle, and they closed it a year later. There's several Amazon Books stores in the area, GONE. It's like their push for retail is a total dead-end.
dayvid 4y ago
I liked their bookstores a lot. Shame they all shut down before
mmanfrin 4y ago
I do not like Amazon, but I absolutely loved the Amazon Go stores. When I worked in the city, it very quickly became part of my routine to stop by to pick up breakfast or a snack. Being able to walk in and walk out reduced an enormous amount of friction and I honestly wish this experiment worked.
cdibona 4y ago
I went to one of these last year and it's was basically a gas station convenience store without the gas or convenience. Poorly stocked, weirdly expensive, and, well, shabby.
mandeepj 4y ago
There’s one in Chicago downtown as well. I guess the Stores failed because it lacked warmth and any inviting vibe. I know it sounds ironic.
- superfunny 4y ago
  I visited the store in the Ogilvie Train Station when it first opened and, honestly, I felt like I was inside a vending machine, given how everything is stocked on the shelves.
realworldperson 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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paxys 4y ago
The cashierless thing is fine, but is never going to be the reason people pick one store over another. The problem with Amazon Go is that they have been trying to target the "upscale convenience store" demographic which doesn't really exist. If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf? Charging 2x what the CVS next door does defeats the purpose. Moreover, if having an Amazon account is a requirement for entering the store then they are effectively targeting people who'd rather order stuff online. Their focus shouldn't have been on Amazon users but the rest of the world.
- kderbyma 4y ago
  same logic applied to the rings of power. Amazon has a problem realising that a niche...is a niche.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf Are they getting rid of human labor? Who is doing stocking, as needed cleanup, opening/closing, and overseeing all that? I'm guessing humans are doing that. And as a customer. It seems to be most of what the people who also work as cashiers are doing, outsidd of a few rush periods where those other tasks, except emergency safety-necessary cleanup, aren’t happening or are deferred. Seems to be its more likely Amazon is adding tech (which has a cost) which mainly serves to enable less efficient use of human labor.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    Your comment just made something click for me. CVS (a drug store) by me has also gotten rid of cashiers... but for self-checkout. So have Royal Farms, a regional gas station/convenience store chain. At both places, if you really try, you can maybe get a cashier at a single human cashier counter, but it's normally unstaffed, and everyone directed to the multiple self check out stations. (I think USA readers know what i mean by self checkout station, but it's, where you can items yourself, and place them in bags yourself, and it yells at you if it doesn't detect the right weight of items placed in bags on a platform, and the whole thing is video taped). Amazon's stre isn't really an alternative to cashiers, it's an alternative to universal self-checkout that everyone else is moving to -- accelerated by the pandemic, but still relatively early on the adoption curve. I assume universal self-check-out does reduce staffing needs, which is why they are all moving to it? I suspect the Amazon cashierless stores won't really take off until all their competition is universal self-checkout. (Which may never happen in say NYC, where you have so many independent very-low-overhead bodega-type stores. But in most places, the competition is more like CVS or Royal Farms). Although I dunno, maybe I'm unusual in prefering human contact to self-checkout, something about the choices being self-checkout with a line or walk out of the store without checking out -- starts to make the Amazon option actually look like something you would want.
codeddesign 4y ago
I wonder if this is a store issue or following in Walmart’s footsteps due to high crime and theft in those areas..
andrei_says_ 4y ago
I went to one in SoCal and was terrified. the entrance they asked me you to scan my prime membership, and told me that I can then fill out my basket - and basically walk out with my stuff without checkout - just moving it into a bag on the way out. I asked how they know what’s in my basket to charge me for it and they said that there are cameras watching me the whole time and noting what I take off the shelf and put in it. I was beyond creeped out by the whole experience. Never went to that store again. Knowing that they not only watch what I’m buying but also recording and analyzing my gate, motion, gaze, microecpressions etc freaked me out. Amazon’s vision to cattle-ize humanity for profit is not attractive to me.
- code_duck 4y ago
  One thing to note is that other retailers do that too - track people around stores with Bluetooth and I assume other methods, noting where shoppers linger, what they buy and what they hesitate on. But they don't tell us they do this.
  - jarjoura 4y ago
    Not that you're wrong, but there's definitely a huge perceptual difference when one method is done visually and another is done anonymously. Amazon Go's system knows who I am, what item I grab off the shelf, put back and then what I ultimately leave with. There's so much personal information they gather from that order and it shows up downstream across their other products. Bluetooth tracking can't attach a face to that and that is a far more appropriate use of tracking. It aids restocking decisions, promotions, etc, that I have no problem participating in. My point is, if I like a particular item, I don't mind the store knowing that and keeping it stocked, and paired with other items I buy together with it. I just don't want the store to know my emotional state, confusion, and speed at which I grabbed an item.
    - code_duck 4y ago
      Sure, that's true, but we don't know that the other stores aren't also using visual tracking and analysis. Also, it's not anonymous since they match shoppers to real world identities with store apps, wifi, shopper loyalty cards and probably payment methods.
1bent 4y ago
I've always found the concept of these puzzling; I find interacting with the folks in stores, even if it's merely exchanging a smile and a friendly word with the cashier, to be a joy in the day to day chores; from the first I heard of these, I thought it tragic that some would want to go there. Horn&Hardart left a lasting memory, but I haven't felt it was nostalgia.
- toofy 4y ago
  yeah, this push to remove human interaction is really strange to me. i wonder often what minimizing humans interacting with each other will cause on a grand macro scale/timeline.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  I enjoy interacting too. On the other hand, I detest waiting in line for 5 minutes to pay, as happens frequently in e.g. CVS. Or 10 minutes at the supermarket. It's not worth 5-10 minutes of my time for small talk with a cashier, especially when half the time the cashier isn't even in a social mood. (I'm sure I wouldn't be either half the time if it were my job.)
zamadatix 4y ago
I hope a similar style store opens in my area. I stop by a CVS nearby decently often but the self checkout counters are a pain. I wonder if it could be made into an optional system though where if you don't identify on entry then it assumes you want a traditional shopping experience. Otherwise existing chains are going to find it hard to switch to this type of model if they wanted to.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
I used one of these stores often in Chicago. The very very frustrating part for me was their limited hours. It seems like if you only have 1-2 staff members you could stay open very late and still be profitable. I'm pretty sure the loop store I went to often closed at 7.
jerzyt 4y ago
I don't have the stats, but seems to me that majority of purchases at convenience stores is alcohol. In CA, you cannot buy alcohol at self-service POS. That spells doom for Amazon Go.
madballster 4y ago
I vividly recall seeing a feature on TV in the mid 80s where they were discussing future technologies for the year 2000. One of them was the cashier-less store: We'd all put in our grocery items in the carts and then the payment would be automagically calculated, no cashier or manual scanning necessary. They assumed it would be microchip based, the chip embedded in packaging. What ever happened to this? Why did this idea fail?
- alsodumb 4y ago
  Not exactly the same but very close - Decathlon, a french sports-goods company uses RFID tags on each item to make checkout easier - https://www.decathlon-united.media/media/decathlon-united-rfid-en https://www.decathlon-united.media/media/decathlon-united-rf... Once you want to checkout, you drop everything you bought into a big bin near the checkout area - it calculates the total based on all RFID tags, you pay, take everything and leave. Imo this is better than checkout in the carts - don't need to attach a payment POS and carry bags to every single cart lol.
  - gotorazor 4y ago
    Oh yes! I do remember doing this as well at Decathlon.
- danhor 4y ago
  Decathlon does this (at least in the stores near me). You put the items into a bin at the self-checkout and everything is recognized. My guess is that that the time savings aren't large enough to offset the cost for stores with lower-cost goods (especially since most time-intensive products in a supermarket are things like produce that needs to be weighed and self-service pastry).
- gotorazor 4y ago
  RFID We have the tech to do this. They library system where I am put RFID tags in all the books. You put the all books you want in a special tray at checkout. (There is still a checkout counter with a machine.) The computer will instantly display all the books you have on the tray. You touch the screen to confirm all the books and it will check them out and print a paper receipt. They can probably eliminate the checkout too, maybe. I imagine that they do it so that the user (you) can confirm what items the computer thinks they wanted to check out.
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Ok, so store based on an app, which nobody really wants to use. Guess what is predominant in BEV chargers? Yeah, stupid apps.
IvyMike 4y ago
I know this is about the Amazon Go stores, but there's a "Just Walk Out Shopping" Amazon Fresh store near me. Before I went it sounded like something I would like. But no. I could give a list of different features I disliked, but in the end, it kind of comes down to the fact that the overall vibe is "The Opposite of Trader Joe's".
code_runner 4y ago
Used one of these in an airport and it was fine. Felt like a novelty in that instance. I didn’t need a particular app but they did employ a person to explain and help… but it was a small enough booth he could’ve just been the cashier. Probably 20-30 seconds faster than a normal place? I actually do like the idea in general but the implementation is ok at best and I didn’t even have to use yet-another-proprietary-app
kornhole 4y ago
Perhaps people in NYC and SF are opting more for cash. I lived in both cities and would walk right past these and into the good old bodegas that prefer cash which is all I would ever pay with.
the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
My experience as a non local is that the stores are impossible to enter with an international Amazon account. The Austrian app store only gives you the amazon.de app which doesn’t have the code to enter the store.
wiseleo 4y ago
A better approach could be to mimic Japan and install vending machines. You walk into the store and see walls of vending machines. Shrink goes to zero. Restocking the machines becomes the only job. They can augment their Whole Foods chain first.
jrm4 4y ago
Good. Good good good. 100% good. This idea deserves to die perhaps more than any other. I wish them nothing but failure in this endeavor.
philip1209 4y ago
Amazon bought Whole Foods because there's massive overlap between Prime members and Whole Foods shoppers. Amazon bought One Medical because there's massive overlap between Prime Members and One Medical members. Look at convenience store shoppers and Prime members, and I don't think there's massive overlap between those customer bases.
TOMDM 4y ago
When the Go store first opened local to me, I had a go at trying to steal from it. I was very impressed, sneaking stuff off the shelf, passing it between multiple people and a few other obvious tactics all get noticed. Only way I've found to defeat it is to throw stuff into your cart from over 3 feet away. I never repeated it after I got my free bag of chips, but it was fun breaking it
tinyhouse 4y ago
It's a cool and useful technology but limited if they cannot expand it to Whole Foods stores (in terms of size and inventory). That's usually where the long lines are.
Mizoguchi 4y ago
If there are three cities in America where you don't want cashierless anything that is NYC, San Francisco and Seattle. Unless you want to test your insurance policy.
diebeforei485 4y ago
I wonder if this could work at a gas station or something. Urban areas have way too much shoplifting and crime these days.
tophi 4y ago
lol l
throwaway22032 4y ago
I always find app-based stuff like this odd. It adds a level of completely unnecessary friction to the process. I drove an EV for a while and the same issue came up - none of them had card/cash payments. It was a significant contributor to me giving it up. They could just as easily have set it up such that I could walk in and they could figure out what I've bought and just let me tap a card or put cash/coins into a self service machine at the end to open the turnstile. No tappy tap = no open turnstile. But they don't, because... I dunno. Less data? I mean, they could facially recognise me and track me that way if they really wanted. If Amazon the website required an app then I wouldn't use it. I bet they'd lose out on a significant number of customers.
turtlebits 4y ago
What I don't get is that Amazon Go stores are closed on weekends (at least in Seattle). Seems like they're going for the in-office workers, I guess that would be a reason start closing them.

280 points by taubek 4y ago

[dead]

I had a really positive experience visiting when they first opened up in Seattle. Felt like the future. Wish they started to outfit the Whole Foods all over more with them.

Laaas 4y ago

Is this because of shoplifting? In that case, an innovative (dystopian?) solution would be to place AI-guided water cannons to shoot thieves.

throwayyy479087 4y ago
Yes. If it was anything else they’d mention it.
- EGreg 4y ago
  They do mention it. They simply don’t let people in who don’t already have an account with them: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/22/16920784/amazon-go-cashier-less-grocery-store-seattle-shoplifting-punishment-detection https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/22/16920784/amazon-go-cashie...
  - fmajid 4y ago
    Because people who routinely steal stuff will draw the line at jumping over a turnstile /s
    - EGreg 4y ago
      Fine then make a rotating door or other thing you can’t jump over!
- rsynnott 4y ago
  Eh? In principle these should be less vulnerable to shoplifting than a normal convenience store with automatic checkouts. It's more likely just because, well, it's not clearly better than a normal convenience store with automatic checkouts.
orangepurple 4y ago
Full height turnstiles activated by a digital ID would reduce this problem to a manageable level
- Laaas 4y ago
  Indeed, it makes you wonder why this is not the case already. It does not seem like an especially hard thing to do. It makes you wonder why they decided this was a good idea in the first place. Seemed sort of obvious that they'd have a shoplifting problem in a region where it's already not too uncommon. Perhaps they assumed the surveillance would deter thieves, but surveillance is only a deterrence if the local police can afford to enforce the law effectively.

novia 4y ago

I'm really bummed about this! I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. I don't live in NYC or San Fran or Seattle, but I'd hoped these stores would spread.

danielvaughn 4y ago
I never went into one of those stores, but I'm down in Florida, and my apartment building has what they call a "sundry shop". It's connected to the main office but it's 24 hours - you get in with an electronic key. It's like a little convenience store, like a corner store in NYC. But the checkout is self-service, and there's a camera. It's amazing, I love it.
- danpalmer 4y ago
  My grandparents used to live in a small village (rural U.K.). The village shop was tiny, just a few shelves and a fridge with basics. No checkout, no cameras, often no volunteer (definitely no paid staff). They just wrote down what they took in a little book and paid at the end of the month. In small enough groups where there is a good sense of community it’s amazing what can work.
  - seneca 4y ago
    It doesn't really even have to be all that small, just high trust. There are road-side produce stands that run on the honor system all over the rural American southeast. They have no idea who will show up. Many are on country highways, even.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. So, basically something a vending machine could provide? We've had those since like the '50s, except without computer vision, user tracking and machine learning. I don't know why Amazon was trying to reinvent the wheel here in the most expensive way possible.

endisneigh 4y ago

Amazon Go seems incredibly overengineered. Why is this superior than a portable scanning plus toggleable RFIDs that disable items on scan and alarm gates? Cameras everywhere and computer vision seems overkill.

chrischen 4y ago
In the midwest we have a giant store called Woodman's that just does low-tech self-checkout lanes and 24-hour stores... Self-checkout is just you doing the scanning and paying yourself... Aside from a high-precision scale and one worker for all of the self-checkout lanes (to assist in errors), it's more or less honor system that just works for the most part.
- leesalminen 4y ago
  My mother-in-law operates the self-checkout lanes at a Kroger brand store in the midwest. The honor system definitely does not work there. Shoplifting is through the roof over the past couple years. It's gotten so bad that management is debating shutting off the self-checkout lanes. A few months ago she was pepper sprayed after confronting a shoplifter who had an entire cart of things, but only scanned and paid for 3. Then last month, someone came in and just wheeled out the entire tobacco shelving unit with a dolly. These are just a couple egregious examples. We hear other shoplifting stories from her every week. The police don't respond to shoplifting calls anymore, and the thieves know it. Employees are now instructed to not confront shoplifters in any way after she got pepper sprayed. It's a total free for all. My mother-in-law estimates the theft to be $10,000 per day at her store.
  - thakoppno 4y ago
    > $10,000 per day at her store. That seems intolerably high but I’ve never worked a day in a grocery store. Do grocery stores generate enough revenue to sustain? Fifty two-hundred dollar carts of cash is a lot to let go.
    - 4y ago

kentosi 4y ago

Slightly misleading title. They're closing 8 of their stores across NYC, SF, etc, and this is after they just opened a few more across the US.

crazygringo 4y ago
And according to Google Maps there are 9 Amazon Go stores in NYC right now, so this would still leave 7. Which is just business as usual, figuring out which stores in which locations turn out to be most profitable.
- philistine 4y ago
  You're right, but it's weird for such a tech-focused company to close stores in such a fashion, because we're used to the giant margins of tech. Apple has never closed that many stores that quickly.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Apple stores are famous for being some of the most profitable stores mankind has ever created. And there aren't that many of them. These Amazon stores are just local convenience stores. They're selling candy bars. And Amazon is a much more "experimental" company than Apple -- they launch and shut down stuff all the time to iterate and learn. This isn't about penny-pinching or margins, it's about finding product-market fit.
ilikehurdles 4y ago
That’s a completely misleading title then.
- gowld 4y ago
  HN removes numbers from titles, as an anti-clickbait tactic, but it leads to errors like this.
sosodev 4y ago

nomy99 4y ago

I shopped at their location at 30 rock. It was a mixed bag feeling. I was in awe of the technology, but at the same time I felt like I was being overly observed like in a prison.. I never went back, even though I work in the building.

crazygringo 4y ago
In basically every retail store, and especially grocery/convenience stores, you are being observed by security cameras at literally every second. In every aisle. This has been the case for decades. It's how they catch shoplifters. I rather like the fact it can be used for customer convenience now, rather than just punitively.
- Someone1234 4y ago
  In typical stores (e.g. Walmart, Target, etc), most of those cameras housings don't contain cameras. The main issue isn't that cameras are expensive, it is that monitoring that many cameras is expensive/impractical, and automated theft detection systems are still in their infancy. So they just target high value/common areas, and rely on deterrents (like people believing they have a lot of cameras, off-duty cops at the door, and PR around some super secret new technology). Quite seriously: Stores really need to look into vending machines for certain items. In particular with how advanced Gift Card Theft-Clone-Return Activation fraud is. Thieves have message-boards not dissimilar to this where they can share "pro-tips," and things have become quite sophisticated.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    > most of those cameras housings don't contain cameras Do you have a source for that? Because at my local grocery store for example, above the customer service area they have a whole wall of TV's showing the live camera feeds. They're all working. My local convenience store has the live TV's too, by the cashier.
    - hotstickyballs 4y ago

doomrobo 4y ago

Likely relevant, NYC passed a law 3 years ago requiring stores to accept cash https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban...

deleted 4y ago
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TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
Amazon announced plans to begin accepting cash (and SNAP) at Go stores but I'm not sure how far it got https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/amazon-exec-tells-employees-that-go-stores-will-start-accepting-cash.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/amazon-exec-tells-employees-...

29athrowaway 4y ago

[flagged]

kenjackson 4y ago
Wow. Thanks for that link. That is eye opening.

bilsbie 4y ago

The right way to do this would be the concept of a giant vending machine. Keep the customers out of the store and bring the items to them.

ElFitz 4y ago
So… Amazon?
joezydeco 4y ago
Do you remember Service Merchandise?

qwertyuiop_ 4y ago

Despite these closures,the company will continue to open new Amazon Go stores, When asked why Amazon has decided to shutter the eight stores in Seattle, New York City and San Francisco, the spokesperson said that like with any retailer, Amazon periodically assesses its portfolio of stores and makes optimization decisions along the way. Theft

themitigating 4y ago
Except there will still be 7 stores in NYC and they didn't say theft.

nprateem 4y ago

I had to go to one to return a package. I couldn't get past the turnstiles because I don't use the app and don't know my password because I use a password manager. This meant I couldn't hand my parcel in at the counter. The woman on the turnstile wouldn't let me in even when I explained the situation. So she went off and got a scanner to take my package. She didn't offer a receipt, and when I asked for one said it wasn't possible to give me one. I checked my email, and nothing there either. So I had no evidence I'd actually returned my item and she just said something like "It's in the system and never makes a mistake" or some similar rubbish. While I was in there I saw several people walk just inside, faff around on their phones for 5 minutes then either give up or eventually get past the turnstiles. There's literally no benefit for customers unless you're shopping at busy times. So all in all an unmitigated disaster.

thoughtpalette 4y ago
YMMV. Was a big fan of the one in Chicago (I'm now remote). Never had any issues. Great selection of food/snacks/drinks. App always worked flawlessly.
baumy 4y ago
Seems like a very weird way of blaming a well defined system for your unwillingness to meet its prerequisites. It would take approximately a few minutes to discover that you need the app to get into the store and get that sorted. You are capable of this, just apparently too lazy or unwilling for some unclear reason. The return experience seems entirely orthogonal to the rest of the story here, and I'm not sure why you included it. For those of us who managed to download the app and login to it, walking into the store, grabbing something off a shelf and walking out was extremely convenient in a way unmatched by any other store. Calling it an unmitigated disaster in your situation is like calling a movie a failure because you couldn't be bothered to go to a theater and see it. Just bizarre.
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack. It's against the HN rules and you can make your substantive points without it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

epberry 4y ago

I think these were some of the first, smaller stores from Amazon Go and probably very expensive to operate. It makes sense the the larger stores with newer hardware would be better financially.

Razengan 4y ago

I've always wondered: Do we really need to put people in shops? We have had vending machines for centuries, most kinds of shops (that don't need a social aspect) could easily just be sealed warehouses with product dispensers dotted outside the walls.

thfuran 4y ago
There are very few items I would ever buy from such a store. You can't really get a good look at the items in a vending machine, and you can't put an item back.
- Razengan 4y ago
  But for something you've always bought, the mundane daily items, you don't really need to check anything, same as with regular vending machines. Returns could be implemented.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    There’s at least one item I look at the nutrition facts for every time I go to the store. Even if the vast majority of my items are the same, it only takes one item where I have not memorized the nutrition facts to make that an inconvenience. Or any produce, where people like to judge quality and ripeness. And also, many people like to browse for new products. I guess it is possible, but it sounds like it’s all the disadvantages of Instacart with all of the disadvantages of going to the store.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    I don't want to buy bruised apples or cracked eggs or overripe melons. I'm not going to go to a second store just for, I don't know, milk and dish soap.

_8j50 4y ago

Amazon is such an anti-human company. From their warehouses to their tech workers they are terrible against people. That said, if people like these stores then good for them. I am honestly shocked and confused when people enjoy this. Or targeted ads or *GPT generated content. I am not anti-tech by any means. Maybe I am just not impressed and awed enough by these technologies to overlook the downsides? I don't support "all progress is good progress" mentality with tech. I find these cashierless stores lazy and needlessly compromising on privacy. Just have a man-trap (locking revolving door for the unaware) that lets you in after you scan a card or speak/type your amazon id and give shoppers a smart cart thay detects what you put in and use cameras only to enforce all items you take are put in the cart. That and facial recognition privacy protection will get me to go there (but hey, i order everything for delivery anyways). They can do better while protecting consumers but choose not to because of the precedent set allowing them to track movements on a store as a feature. So why can't this be used to keep you safe in apartment complexes, parking lots (car theives),etc... soon facial recognition will be id'ing me everywhere I go! The laws to protect people are nowhere near where they should be. So what are my choices? Move to the arctic and build an igloo?

CatWChainsaw 4y ago
>I am honestly shocked and confused when people enjoy this. Or targeted ads or *GPT generated content. I am not anti-tech by any means. Maybe I am just not impressed and awed enough by these technologies to overlook the downsides? Some people believe these are amazing things. They tell other people that these are amazing things, so more people believe it, or at least accept it as default. Whereas I look at these things and think I live in bizarro-world with how much other people seem to enjoy them.
looping__lui 4y ago
Much to my surprise, I genuinely loved the experience im the Amazon Go stores. I was super skeptical, but it is really convenient. I didn’t know how much I hate checkout lines or self-service checkout counters until I visited an Amazon Go store. Amazon also owns Ring which can be used to protect your home (although it’s certainly less sophisticated). I own a Ring home security system and I’m very fond of it. Same for my parents when they go for their vacation home - big game changer for their ease of mind. Now, I’m not super fond of how Ring shared footage without consent in some countries with authorities; but it’s probably the company I trust most with my personal data footage etc. And I deem them more capable in protecting my data.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago

Is there, anywhere, a list of the exact stores that will be closed?

Overtonwindow 4y ago

It likely came down to the location, the technology, or the price. Was there shrinkage?

neckardt 4y ago

I walk past an amazon go store on my way to work. It's super convenient if I need something, I can be in and out within less than 30 seconds. The problem is I rarely have anything I need to buy on my commute.

fmajid 4y ago

So they are closing all 4 stores in San Francisco. Makes sense given how downtown where all 4 were has turned into a ghost town, and the generalized lawlessness and pillage with impunity by shoplifters can't have helped.

bogomipz 4y ago

Relatedly, this announcement came on the same day they announced they were pausing the second phase of their HQ2 development in Virginia: https://www.fastcompany.com/90860480/amazon-hq2-construction-pause-mass-layoffs-washington-dc https://www.fastcompany.com/90860480/amazon-hq2-construction... This is significant in that the HQ2 bidding process was basically a competition by local governments to see who could give Amazon the largest tax breaks and other incentives so that Amazon would choose their city as the site its location. See: https://www.brookings.edu/research/five-economic-development-takeaways-from-the-amazon-hq2-bids/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/five-economic-development...

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

I used to visit one of the NYC the Go stores daily until covid happened. It was cute and surgically clean, worked wonderfully, and their inventory management was much better then CVS and Duane Reade which often sell out of things and have empty shelves for days. But nobody ever went there - no matter what time of the day I went, there would be one person doing inventory and stocking, two people standing by to help people install the Go app on their phones and explain the concept, and myself. Occasionally one other person being helped to install the app. I think the issue was that everything there except Coca-Cola and Arizona tea cost significantly more then any of the surrounding stores, and if you hate quinoa you were SOL because it was in everything except drinks and sushi. If you are paying two thirds of your income or more on a Manhattan apartment you probably couldn’t afford to eat routinely from the Go store. Then Covid happened. I really hate the guy who decided to put quinoa in everything. Because of that I only ever bought drinks there.

ElfinTrousers 4y ago
There's nothing wrong with quinoa. Makes excellent insulation or packaging material. Some crazy bastards will even try and eat it.
bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
Putting quinoa in everything and assuming the addressable market had more disposable income seems like one of the signs of the last bubble.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Why are people so weird about food? What about quinoa made it associated with rich yuppies? If you didn’t already know you would probably assume the main consumers would be dudes who want their chicken and carb to have even more protein.
  - swatcoder 4y ago
    Food choice being a proxy and signal for class/culture is nothing new. You’d be hard pressed to find a cultural tradition that doesn’t speak to it. While everyone needs sustenance, there are often several adequate choices about how to get it and making those choices become a way of communicating to others. And communicating is an defining and seemingly valuable part of being human. It’s not really weird and it’s not going anywhere.

jstummbillig 4y ago

I have actually had a very positive experience with cashier-less shopping – albeit not with Amazon Go and in the EU. As of now, it's been heavily benefited from never having to wait in a line (because the vast majority of people will still opt for the cashier lanes) but I actually found the UX (which in my case always included scanning of products like a cashier would) actually quite delightful and surprisingly never had any issues. I can totally see this scaling quite nicely, considering stores will have to employ less personal, even if it it requires some additional store space, and I would be mildly surprised if cashiers were still a thing in 10 years. It increasingly seems like a job no one should be doing, in a combination of "bad for your health", "a waste of of human resources in a world where they are becoming rapidly scarce" and "boring" and I don't think they will, in the not so far future. What are other experiences?

rpadovani 4y ago
In Italy, it has been years, if not decades, that in a chain of large supermarkets there is a system where, when you enter the supermarket, you can pick up a barcode reader. While you are doing your shopping, you scan your products. At the exit, you scan a QR code to end the shopping, you pay, and off you go. The huge advantage, apart from no queues, is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it way, way quicker. You can have a “random” check where everything will be scanned again by a real cashier.
- jstummbillig 4y ago
  > is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart, making it way, way quicker. I don't understand the mechanics. You need to put the physical item back and also remove it from the barcode reader, no?
  - rpadovani 4y ago
    No, that's the fancy part. You pick up a barcode reader at the entrance, something like [0]. When you pick something from the shelf, you scan it, and put in the cart. You don't remove the stuff from the cart until your car, so you can already fill up your bags in the cart! [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Barcode-scanner.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Barcode-...

mabbo 4y ago

I hope this doesn't signal the end of the entire business model. I know there are still speed bumps and problems to address, but cashier in a convenience store is one of those awful jobs I don't think anyone should have to do if we can avoid it. I've had plenty of friends and family work those jobs, and briefly did it myself (at a gas station). Often these friends worked overnight, with the risk of being held up at 3am when no one is around. Usually it's just standing around waiting for a customer, with occasional chores to be done. And it always pays as little as legally possible. Let's destroy this job.

bogomipz 4y ago
Cashier jobs are entry level positions. As such they are also a means of advancement to other roles in retail. Countless people started as cashier and worked their way up to roles like customer services, buyer, store manager etc. These jobs are also an opportunity for students to earn money and get work experience. But yes, "Let's destroy this job" simply because you don't like it? Since your profile states you are a staff developer at Shopify, here's a Shopify link that outlines the value that the role of cashier brings to a retail environment: https://www.shopify.com/retail/retail-jobs-common-positions https://www.shopify.com/retail/retail-jobs-common-positions
- wetpaws 4y ago
  This is a fallacy imo. The less mundane, mindnumbing and highly automated jobs we have, the better. There is a reason why for example living human beings do not manually switch phone lines anymore when you make a phone call - you could rationalize it as much as you can, but frankly humans we born for better stuff.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    If you are going to state something is fallacy then you might want to substantiate the fallacy. Instead all you provide is your opinion that the elimination of a class of jobs is for "the better." What I have stated is that entry level positions are a means of advancement in retail environments. This based on empirical fact. >"There is a reason why for example living human beings do not manually switch phone lines anymore when you make a phone call" No, the reason "human beings do not manually switch phone lines anymore" is because the growth of subscriber lines exceeded the capacity for manual switching in Central Offices. It had nothing to do with nature of the job.

mikeflynn 4y ago

They just opened an Amazon Go store in LA (Woodland Hills) at the beginning of the year. From my unscientific sample of personal visits it seems to be getting decent traffic, is well run, and is a much nicer place to quickly grab something on a walk over a gas station or a market that only takes cash. For whatever reason there's also a Whole Foods and an Amazon Fresh near by as well. Woodland Hills is well stocked with Amazon retail!

Scuds 4y ago

They built a Go store into their office in Bellevue,WA - it's got the freezers and shelves but it hasn't opened. They built a Four Star store into their HQ in Seattle, and they closed it a year later. There's several Amazon Books stores in the area, GONE. It's like their push for retail is a total dead-end.

dayvid 4y ago

I liked their bookstores a lot. Shame they all shut down before

mmanfrin 4y ago

I do not like Amazon, but I absolutely loved the Amazon Go stores. When I worked in the city, it very quickly became part of my routine to stop by to pick up breakfast or a snack. Being able to walk in and walk out reduced an enormous amount of friction and I honestly wish this experiment worked.

cdibona 4y ago

I went to one of these last year and it's was basically a gas station convenience store without the gas or convenience. Poorly stocked, weirdly expensive, and, well, shabby.

mandeepj 4y ago

There’s one in Chicago downtown as well. I guess the Stores failed because it lacked warmth and any inviting vibe. I know it sounds ironic.

superfunny 4y ago
I visited the store in the Ogilvie Train Station when it first opened and, honestly, I felt like I was inside a vending machine, given how everything is stocked on the shelves.

realworldperson 4y ago

[dead]

deleted 4y ago

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paxys 4y ago

The cashierless thing is fine, but is never going to be the reason people pick one store over another. The problem with Amazon Go is that they have been trying to target the "upscale convenience store" demographic which doesn't really exist. If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf? Charging 2x what the CVS next door does defeats the purpose. Moreover, if having an Amazon account is a requirement for entering the store then they are effectively targeting people who'd rather order stuff online. Their focus shouldn't have been on Amazon users but the rest of the world.

kderbyma 4y ago
same logic applied to the rings of power. Amazon has a problem realising that a niche...is a niche.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf Are they getting rid of human labor? Who is doing stocking, as needed cleanup, opening/closing, and overseeing all that? I'm guessing humans are doing that. And as a customer. It seems to be most of what the people who also work as cashiers are doing, outsidd of a few rush periods where those other tasks, except emergency safety-necessary cleanup, aren’t happening or are deferred. Seems to be its more likely Amazon is adding tech (which has a cost) which mainly serves to enable less efficient use of human labor.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Your comment just made something click for me. CVS (a drug store) by me has also gotten rid of cashiers... but for self-checkout. So have Royal Farms, a regional gas station/convenience store chain. At both places, if you really try, you can maybe get a cashier at a single human cashier counter, but it's normally unstaffed, and everyone directed to the multiple self check out stations. (I think USA readers know what i mean by self checkout station, but it's, where you can items yourself, and place them in bags yourself, and it yells at you if it doesn't detect the right weight of items placed in bags on a platform, and the whole thing is video taped). Amazon's stre isn't really an alternative to cashiers, it's an alternative to universal self-checkout that everyone else is moving to -- accelerated by the pandemic, but still relatively early on the adoption curve. I assume universal self-check-out does reduce staffing needs, which is why they are all moving to it? I suspect the Amazon cashierless stores won't really take off until all their competition is universal self-checkout. (Which may never happen in say NYC, where you have so many independent very-low-overhead bodega-type stores. But in most places, the competition is more like CVS or Royal Farms). Although I dunno, maybe I'm unusual in prefering human contact to self-checkout, something about the choices being self-checkout with a line or walk out of the store without checking out -- starts to make the Amazon option actually look like something you would want.

codeddesign 4y ago

I wonder if this is a store issue or following in Walmart’s footsteps due to high crime and theft in those areas..

andrei_says_ 4y ago

I went to one in SoCal and was terrified. the entrance they asked me you to scan my prime membership, and told me that I can then fill out my basket - and basically walk out with my stuff without checkout - just moving it into a bag on the way out. I asked how they know what’s in my basket to charge me for it and they said that there are cameras watching me the whole time and noting what I take off the shelf and put in it. I was beyond creeped out by the whole experience. Never went to that store again. Knowing that they not only watch what I’m buying but also recording and analyzing my gate, motion, gaze, microecpressions etc freaked me out. Amazon’s vision to cattle-ize humanity for profit is not attractive to me.

code_duck 4y ago
One thing to note is that other retailers do that too - track people around stores with Bluetooth and I assume other methods, noting where shoppers linger, what they buy and what they hesitate on. But they don't tell us they do this.
- jarjoura 4y ago
  Not that you're wrong, but there's definitely a huge perceptual difference when one method is done visually and another is done anonymously. Amazon Go's system knows who I am, what item I grab off the shelf, put back and then what I ultimately leave with. There's so much personal information they gather from that order and it shows up downstream across their other products. Bluetooth tracking can't attach a face to that and that is a far more appropriate use of tracking. It aids restocking decisions, promotions, etc, that I have no problem participating in. My point is, if I like a particular item, I don't mind the store knowing that and keeping it stocked, and paired with other items I buy together with it. I just don't want the store to know my emotional state, confusion, and speed at which I grabbed an item.
  - code_duck 4y ago
    Sure, that's true, but we don't know that the other stores aren't also using visual tracking and analysis. Also, it's not anonymous since they match shoppers to real world identities with store apps, wifi, shopper loyalty cards and probably payment methods.

1bent 4y ago

I've always found the concept of these puzzling; I find interacting with the folks in stores, even if it's merely exchanging a smile and a friendly word with the cashier, to be a joy in the day to day chores; from the first I heard of these, I thought it tragic that some would want to go there. Horn&Hardart left a lasting memory, but I haven't felt it was nostalgia.

toofy 4y ago
yeah, this push to remove human interaction is really strange to me. i wonder often what minimizing humans interacting with each other will cause on a grand macro scale/timeline.
crazygringo 4y ago
I enjoy interacting too. On the other hand, I detest waiting in line for 5 minutes to pay, as happens frequently in e.g. CVS. Or 10 minutes at the supermarket. It's not worth 5-10 minutes of my time for small talk with a cashier, especially when half the time the cashier isn't even in a social mood. (I'm sure I wouldn't be either half the time if it were my job.)

zamadatix 4y ago

I hope a similar style store opens in my area. I stop by a CVS nearby decently often but the self checkout counters are a pain. I wonder if it could be made into an optional system though where if you don't identify on entry then it assumes you want a traditional shopping experience. Otherwise existing chains are going to find it hard to switch to this type of model if they wanted to.

AlwaysRock 4y ago

I used one of these stores often in Chicago. The very very frustrating part for me was their limited hours. It seems like if you only have 1-2 staff members you could stay open very late and still be profitable. I'm pretty sure the loop store I went to often closed at 7.

jerzyt 4y ago

I don't have the stats, but seems to me that majority of purchases at convenience stores is alcohol. In CA, you cannot buy alcohol at self-service POS. That spells doom for Amazon Go.

madballster 4y ago

I vividly recall seeing a feature on TV in the mid 80s where they were discussing future technologies for the year 2000. One of them was the cashier-less store: We'd all put in our grocery items in the carts and then the payment would be automagically calculated, no cashier or manual scanning necessary. They assumed it would be microchip based, the chip embedded in packaging. What ever happened to this? Why did this idea fail?

alsodumb 4y ago
Not exactly the same but very close - Decathlon, a french sports-goods company uses RFID tags on each item to make checkout easier - https://www.decathlon-united.media/media/decathlon-united-rfid-en https://www.decathlon-united.media/media/decathlon-united-rf... Once you want to checkout, you drop everything you bought into a big bin near the checkout area - it calculates the total based on all RFID tags, you pay, take everything and leave. Imo this is better than checkout in the carts - don't need to attach a payment POS and carry bags to every single cart lol.
- gotorazor 4y ago
  Oh yes! I do remember doing this as well at Decathlon.
danhor 4y ago
Decathlon does this (at least in the stores near me). You put the items into a bin at the self-checkout and everything is recognized. My guess is that that the time savings aren't large enough to offset the cost for stores with lower-cost goods (especially since most time-intensive products in a supermarket are things like produce that needs to be weighed and self-service pastry).
gotorazor 4y ago
RFID We have the tech to do this. They library system where I am put RFID tags in all the books. You put the all books you want in a special tray at checkout. (There is still a checkout counter with a machine.) The computer will instantly display all the books you have on the tray. You touch the screen to confirm all the books and it will check them out and print a paper receipt. They can probably eliminate the checkout too, maybe. I imagine that they do it so that the user (you) can confirm what items the computer thinks they wanted to check out.

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago

Ok, so store based on an app, which nobody really wants to use. Guess what is predominant in BEV chargers? Yeah, stupid apps.

IvyMike 4y ago

I know this is about the Amazon Go stores, but there's a "Just Walk Out Shopping" Amazon Fresh store near me. Before I went it sounded like something I would like. But no. I could give a list of different features I disliked, but in the end, it kind of comes down to the fact that the overall vibe is "The Opposite of Trader Joe's".

code_runner 4y ago

Used one of these in an airport and it was fine. Felt like a novelty in that instance. I didn’t need a particular app but they did employ a person to explain and help… but it was a small enough booth he could’ve just been the cashier. Probably 20-30 seconds faster than a normal place? I actually do like the idea in general but the implementation is ok at best and I didn’t even have to use yet-another-proprietary-app

kornhole 4y ago

Perhaps people in NYC and SF are opting more for cash. I lived in both cities and would walk right past these and into the good old bodegas that prefer cash which is all I would ever pay with.

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago

My experience as a non local is that the stores are impossible to enter with an international Amazon account. The Austrian app store only gives you the amazon.de app which doesn’t have the code to enter the store.

wiseleo 4y ago

A better approach could be to mimic Japan and install vending machines. You walk into the store and see walls of vending machines. Shrink goes to zero. Restocking the machines becomes the only job. They can augment their Whole Foods chain first.

jrm4 4y ago

Good. Good good good. 100% good. This idea deserves to die perhaps more than any other. I wish them nothing but failure in this endeavor.

philip1209 4y ago

Amazon bought Whole Foods because there's massive overlap between Prime members and Whole Foods shoppers. Amazon bought One Medical because there's massive overlap between Prime Members and One Medical members. Look at convenience store shoppers and Prime members, and I don't think there's massive overlap between those customer bases.

TOMDM 4y ago

When the Go store first opened local to me, I had a go at trying to steal from it. I was very impressed, sneaking stuff off the shelf, passing it between multiple people and a few other obvious tactics all get noticed. Only way I've found to defeat it is to throw stuff into your cart from over 3 feet away. I never repeated it after I got my free bag of chips, but it was fun breaking it

tinyhouse 4y ago

It's a cool and useful technology but limited if they cannot expand it to Whole Foods stores (in terms of size and inventory). That's usually where the long lines are.

Mizoguchi 4y ago

If there are three cities in America where you don't want cashierless anything that is NYC, San Francisco and Seattle. Unless you want to test your insurance policy.

diebeforei485 4y ago

I wonder if this could work at a gas station or something. Urban areas have way too much shoplifting and crime these days.

tophi 4y ago

lol l

throwaway22032 4y ago

I always find app-based stuff like this odd. It adds a level of completely unnecessary friction to the process. I drove an EV for a while and the same issue came up - none of them had card/cash payments. It was a significant contributor to me giving it up. They could just as easily have set it up such that I could walk in and they could figure out what I've bought and just let me tap a card or put cash/coins into a self service machine at the end to open the turnstile. No tappy tap = no open turnstile. But they don't, because... I dunno. Less data? I mean, they could facially recognise me and track me that way if they really wanted. If Amazon the website required an app then I wouldn't use it. I bet they'd lose out on a significant number of customers.

turtlebits 4y ago

What I don't get is that Amazon Go stores are closed on weekends (at least in Seattle). Seems like they're going for the in-office workers, I guess that would be a reason start closing them.