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Amazon Unveils 'Self-driving' Brick-and-Mortar Convenience Store (seattletimes.com)
Amazon announced Monday it has built a convenience store in downtown Seattle that deploys a gaggle of technologies similar to those used in self-driving cars to allow shoppers to come in, grab items and walk out without going through a register (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). From a report on Seattle Times: The 1,800 square-foot store, officially dubbed "Amazon Go," is the latest beach in brick-and-mortar retail stormed by the e-commerce giant, which already has bookstores and is working on secretive drive-through grocery locations. It's clearly a sign that Amazon sees a big opportunity in revolutionizing the staid traditions of Main Street commerce. Located on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Blanchard Street, the store is open to Amazon employees participating in a testing program. It is expected to be open to the public in early 2017.
The people at the self-checkout registers are there when the machine (or customer) screws up, or when there is some exception which requires human interaction (ie. the self-checkout register can't currently measure a length of wire, for example, and charge the correct amount per foot).
You can steal something anywhere in a store. I'm not sure why you'd do it at a register (there's more cameras in this area than anywhere else, to prevent theft of cash by employees).
Yes, because Europeans are inherently all honest and Americans are all t'ieves aren't we?
Self-service checkouts turn honest shoppers into thieves, warn criminologists
The study involved data from nearly 12 million shopping trips from four major British retailers as well others in the US, Belgium and Holland between 2013 and 2015
The researchers found that introducing self-checkouts raised the rate of loss by 122 per cent to an average of 3.9 per cent of turnover.
It is also difficult for retailers to identify whether a customer wilfully took items without scanning or were simply absentminded.
I'm in the US and I must plead guilty to being absentminded and "stealing" a loaf of bread once. It was very crowded and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. After I exited the store I noticed it sitting there in the lower basket of my cart (not scanned or paid for). I briefly thought about going back inside and paying for it, but then I thought of the crowds and the time it would take.
I figured I could just make it right the next time I shopped there. I never did.
I've also seen, but never taken, the opportunity to mis-enter the codes for my produce. Am I buying the expensive apples or the cheap ones? Hmmm....I could easily claim it was an honest mistake.
I don't do that because the risk is not worth the few pennies I might save. I also consider myself honest, but I guess I'm not that honest since I never made good on that loaf of bread.
And they don't always watch given that I sometimes have to track down an employee when the self-checkout thinks there's a problem. Usually they just clear the register without checking to make sure I didn't cheat.
I believe that Honesty through paranoia is a real thing. Of course sometimes they really are watching. You can never know for sure unless you try, right?
Of course that's not going to stop everyone. Even before self-checkout some people would switch price tags, barcodes or just stuff more expensive merchandise into cheaper packaging. And then there's what's called "sweethearting" where the cashier just cooperates with the thief and doesn't ring certain things up properly if at all.
Don't kid yourself. Shoplifting and other forms of theft are a real problem all over the world. There are people who actually make a living at it.