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Two Ex-Googlers Want To Make Bodegas And Mom-And-Pop Corner Stores Obsolete (fastcompany.com)
Elizabeth Segran, writing for FastCompany: While it sometimes feels like we do all of our shopping on the internet, government data shows that actually less than 10% of all retail transactions happen online. In a world where we get our groceries delivered in just two hours through Instacart or Amazon Fresh, the humble corner store -- or bodega, as they are known in New York and Los Angeles -- still performs a valuable function. No matter how organized you are, you're bound to run out of milk or diapers in the middle of the night and need to make a quick visit to your neighborhood retailer. Paul McDonald, who spent 13 years as a product manager at Google, wants to make this corner store a thing of the past. Today, he is launching a new concept called Bodega with his cofounder Ashwath Rajan, another Google veteran. Bodega sets up five-foot-wide pantry boxes filled with non-perishable items you might pick up at a convenience store. An app will allow you to unlock the box and cameras powered with computer vision will register what you've picked up, automatically charging your credit card. The entire process happens without a person actually manning the "store." Bodega's logo is a cat, a nod to the popular bodega cat meme on social media -- although if the duo gets their way, real felines won't have brick-and-mortar shops to saunter around and take naps in much longer. "The vision here is much bigger than the box itself," McDonald says. "Eventually, centralized shopping locations won't be necessary, because there will be 100,000 Bodegas spread out, with one always 100 feet away from you."
They've invented the Vending Machine! Stop the presses! This will change the world!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That's what Millennials are for.
dinner: it's what's for beer
See, Google execs get to prance around all high and mighty about how much they 'care' about workers by pushing for a $15/hour (or make that $30/hour after they get their way with $15) minimum wage.
It's a great way to point guns at the heads of their competitors to make it easier to drive them out of business with their new "startup" ideas.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
what about stuff by law can't be self checkout like beer and smokes? also WIC and food stamps?
From http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/1...
A new startup called Bodega launched Wednesday and has already apologized in the face of mounting outrage.
Folks weren't happy that Bodega appeared to be taking aim at mom-and-pop shops run by hardworking immigrants, while simultaneously misappropriating immigrant culture and celebrating gentrification.
"Despite our best intentions and our admiration for traditional bodegas, we clearly hit a nerve this morning," Bodega wrote in a Medium post. "And we apologize to anyone we've offended. Rather than disrespect to traditional corner stores -- or worse yet, a threat -- we intended only admiration."
And https://blog.bodega.ai/so-abou...
Yes, clearly. The name Bodega sparked a wave of criticism on social media far beyond what we ever imagined. When we first came up with the idea to call the company Bodega we recognized that there was a risk of it being interpreted as misappropriation. We did some homework—speaking to New Yorkers, branding people, and even running some survey work asking about the name and any potential offense it might cause. But it’s clear that we may not have been asking the right questions of the right people.
Way to go there!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Mom and Pop Corner Stores want to make Google obsolete.
It won't be that hard. A little recession could do the job easily.
so why do I need a phone + data plan to use a vending system??
mini market vending systems take cash and have self scan no need for a phone / data plan.
IMages in google search for "farm stores Miami"
Hurricanes can't kill this. Neither will Google, nor ex-googlers.
Aside from the apt "vending machine" comparison being made, I've also seen similar things at hotels I've stayed at, usually adjacent to the lobby where it can be monitored by hotel staff -- but the charging mechanism is via room key. Snacks, toiletries, drinks, etc. Prices are less than minibar and more similar to "convenient store". We also have a similar system for buying snacks at work -- you pick up the snack you want, take it to a kiosk and scan it. This gives a wider selection of stuff, which could be changed up as needed/desired, and the buying area is monitored with cameras. Probably wouldn't work in an "open to the public" setting without a lot better security, but for an office setting we get much better snack selection vs. vending machine. We also have vending machines around that work with Android/Apple Pay -- no app required. Of course, there are the fabled Japanese vending machines, which legend says sell just about anything you can imagine. Then there are the similar machines at airports ... so yeah, a more crowded space for something that's already been invented many times, and one whose implementation details have already been worked out elsewhere by other firms who are doing essentially the same thing one way or another.
I haven't gone out to go shopping for months, and before that time, it was also probably 4-6 months. When I did go out the shopping was sort of incidental; a stop for something after a movie or dinner out typically. Perhaps when I leave the hell-hole that is Southern California I'll go out more but for now I treat this place like the cesspool that it is.
You, allot of people, the majority of humanity I would imagine, actually prefer not to be chained to a monitor/tablet/iCrap device 23 hours a day. We enjoy walking around, taking a break, a quick browse to the corner store..... To envision no "need" for that indicates you're really whacked. Step away from the keyboard, put down the VR glasses and talk to a person, you know, face to face....
Since bodegas are for peemergencies AND convenience items, I assume they'll add toilets too (or else their little "ventures" will become a convenient receptacle for that anyway).
-
These guys are lifelong city-dwellers right? "...with one always 100 feet away from you." Good luck with that anywhere outside of a major city.
And why civilized countries like Europe institute protections for aspects of society that should not be allowed to change just because some rich assholes figure out a way to eliminate people from a process.
Today it's the community store that goes away.
Tomorrow, it WILL be the community.
"In a world where we get our groceries delivered in just two hours through Instacart or Amazon Fresh, ..."
What world is he speaking about? It doesn't sound like this one...
#DeleteChrome
If an entire industry needs to be made obsolete, it should be real estate agents. They no longer serve any useful purpose, whatsoever. A search engine (hmmm...) can do their job perfectly. And before someone starts yakking about screening people, get real.
My favorite quote: "You're bound to run out of milk or diapers in the middle of the night." I am 35 years old and this has never happened. I am married and this has never happened. I have a dog and this has never happened. I have neighbors and this has never happened. I have a job and this has never happened. I have two kids and this has never happened. WTF
The killer part of the idea.
Autonomous stores.
They drive around to where people are tweeting or facebooking from, with no driver, no cashier. Just an occasional visit from someone to restock.
Or they could drive back to a robot refilling station to recharge their wares.
I'm a normal person that doesn't live in an urban bubble.
Please tell me what a "bodega" is.
I think for a quickie-mart app and service, one of the co-founders is Indian.
Next up, are we going to see a gambling site co-founded by Running Deer or Greying Wolf?
What happens when the system bills you incorrectly and there's no person there to correct the error? You get to call an Indian call center and try to explain to them 40 times that you picked up a box of crackers and not a bottle of milk? Fuck that.
two silicon valley people assume that life everywhere is just like their own neighborhood.
Also how dumb is he, thinking he can take on big tobacco? because that is the only way to kill the corner store. It is illegal to put smokes in vending machines due to age verification issues so they must be in stores. It also makes sense for those stores to carry other items in the name of convenience.
So they can track your spending habits and sell it to Big Data. Mostly-cash businesses like bodegas are one of the last untracked businesses.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Have these people ever been in a convenience store, or do they have such horribly crippling social anxiety disorder that they never go outside where there might be (shocking!!!) PEOPLE they would have to interact with?
I'll fill in the gaps for them: There is an order of magnitude, at least more items available in the typical convenience store than their vending machine (and that's what it is, a vending machine!) can hold -- and all that includes refrigerated and frozen items. All they're doing is re-inventing the vending machine. This is not revolutionary, this is not ground-breaking, this is not innovative in any way, and this is one of the most clueless things I've heard of. There will always be a need for 'mom and pop' convenience stores, and 7-11, and what-have-you. Do they really think that they're going to put all of these out of business? Do they really think they're going to convince every gas station in the country (on the planet?) to dump their convenience store side of the business for an overblown vending machine? Clueless, clueless, clueless. And what's even worse: anything you bought from it would be tracked because you're essentially using plastic to buy it. More marketing data for them to sell on the back end! The hell with that, and the hell with these clueless idiots.
A vending machine is considerably more complex with a higher level of automation. This is just a hotel minibar.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Eventually, centralized shopping locations won't be necessary, because there will be 100,000 Bodegas spread out, with one always 100 feet away from you.
And will each of those boxes have the same inventory? Because at 5 feet wide, they aren't going to have nearly the same selection. They might poach the 20% of bodega trips with the highest-turnover, highest-profit items - the same way oil change shops took that service away from full-service garages - but someone still has to carry the other 80% of the inventory.
Nope, no sig
Yet another way people who are already wealthy are looking at taking work from people who aren't. Yay.
Seriously, they did this in the 1950's and it failed then and it will fail now.
Will they be able to serve up a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese upon request?
...there will be 100,000 Bodegas spread out, with one always 100 feet away from you.
They're called Starbucks.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
There's thousands of vending machines everywhere you go in Japan. They don't need "cameras powered with computer vision" to register what you've picked up and automatically charging your credit card.
#DeleteFacebook
These POS vending stops are extremely vulnerable. If the grid fails, each one needs its own power source. Even with cameras and sat uplinks these things are just soft, unguarded targets, and they will be raped even faster than ATMs.
They should change the name to Piñata, because that's what it will look like when the locals bust it open and grab the goodies.
Just another stupid "Chicken in Every Pot -- Face-Scanner on Every Corner" idea. Yeah, no thanks you scumbag Juicero marketing weasels. I hope the "inventors" are killed along with their families.
I really don't know what else people buy in those stores, that's all I ever see anybody buy - cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets.
how does this relate to nerds..
your all fucking stoopid..
2nd.. of course there has to be a foreign bitch in the mix somewhere with the attitude of, " Well my ancestors, were to pussy to stand up for their heritage, beliefs, and culture. So because this dude is buthurt about something he cant do anything about any way because of the past, he feels he must push his feelings of displacement on others for a "shared experience"
What I see is people/cultures whom have made crap decisions in the past for their fellow brethren,being surfaced.. If cultures feel the need to "share" their bad decisions with others, look at Jinder Mahal from WWE. He has found a way to socialize his experiences, without any subtraction from others or the environment. What i am finding is but-hurt cultures arw allways finbding ways to lash out at the world around them, with the notion that society owes them, since they have been so down-trodden.. bullshit.. your fate is your own. Take responsibilities for your poor actions, bitches,,
Bodegas are always dark, dirty, and filled with overpriced junk food. A blight on the urban landscape that will not be missed.
...the better. And may they wind up working in a convenience corner store for a living....
I can see this idea as a positive one if the self-serve portion of the store is linked to a regularly manned store. During normal business hours both the self-serve and the manned portion of the store will be open. At other times only the self-serve side will be open for business. This is similar to how a 24 hour gas station works.
There are a couple of downsides though. What about folks who don't have credit cards? Are they are out of luck? Also, security could be an issue.
Isn';t Googles "creed" do no evil?
Well it seems this totally contradicts that.
I mean putting out mom n pop out on the street, so someone can feel better about them selves..
This is not about money..
Clearly there is an ulterior motive
im sure more will surface as the day goes on.
These two ex-Googlers ought to get out of their ivory tower and see what life is like in a poor, inner-city environment where it is either the bodega or a food desert. I am from Philadelphia and neighborhoods thrive on bodegas where food is cheap and available. We don't have Whole Foods, Giant, Super Fresh, and shit that caters to millennials. We're poor folk living on scraps. I live in this neighborhood because it is all I can afford. I don't have a credit or debit card because no bank will touch me because life happened, I got sick, and became disabled. I don't have the luxury of even living in a safe neighborhood. Leave the bodega alone, assholes!
So, I enter a code to open the door, and trust some camera to appropriately charge my credit card for what I take? I think not. At least with a normal vending machine there's control over what I want and what I take. Like in the video, dude grabs a bunch of highlighters. Can this camera really say how many of what I just grabbed? I'd never trust it, so I'd never use it.
Loved the search engine in the late '90s early '00s. Little did we know that the "do no evil" tag was a gimmick and we were helping to create the largest, most successful advertising company ever conceived.
The very term "mom-and-pop" is meant to evoke emotional disapproval of whatever it is that threatens the obsoletion. And, because the only way to protect a business from being obsoleted by another business in a free market is via a government regulation, this is an appeal to the government...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Convenience stores are - wait for it - convenient.
The owner knows what people need and adjusts stock accordingly. He's basically the maintenance man of a large walk-in vending machine. One that will call the cops if there's trouble in the neighborhood or cook coffee if you want some. No way it's any glorified vending machine going to replace convenience stores and kiosks.
Just like a coffee robot will never replace the cute young ladies serving me at my favorite Cafe.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
How will they replace the Bodega Cat? Answer: They can't.
Make a bunch of hipster services...
bodegagateway.com - you order your groceries online, and they are carted from a corner store market to your house via rickshaw for the ultimate experience.
ryckshaw.com - While I'm at it, let's make a rickshaw-hiring app! This would be like Lyft, but with rickshaws.
Stand back boys, I'm gonna get RICH!
[this post has been brought to you by the word 'Sarcasm']
Offhand, I'd say what could go wrong is people wearing masks, waiting for someone else to open the door, then rushing in and emptying all the shelves.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Hi,
Aside from all other considerations... Let's get this crystal clear: Outside New York NOBODY calls the 'mom-and-pop' stores "bodega". It is only in the NYC area (perhaps CT, NJ and nearby states) that they are called that. Literally it means "warehouse" and that is what Puerto Ricans and Dominicans call them....
OUTSIDE these small shops are called a number of things: "Tiendas", "Super", "Mercado", etc.
These ex googlers should first and foremost be condemned for their total ignorance of the heterogeneous hispanic community all over the US.
I have to say the author of the article seem to add her words into the interview and put the company in a bad light.
Creator: We are inspired by mom-and-pop
Author: They are putting mom-and-pop out of business.
The article title itself is a click bait
or bodega, as they are known in New York and Los Angeles
New York is the only place that calls it a bodega. You may have a few New York wannabes in LA calling them that, but no one with a brain does.
An anonymous pre-paid card with $1 balance and a mask: free stuff!
"or bodega, as they are known in New York and Los Angeles"
Really? We call them bodegas in LA? It's (very) possible that i'm just out of touch, but when news stories started popping up about the strike in New York i had zero idea what a "bodega" was and had to google it to figure out what everyone was talking about it.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Now they only have to work out a way to stop the thousands of newly stray cats from pissing on the boxes and making everything around them stink.
Avanti Markets already does a similar thing inside several offices -- it's an honor-pay system with where you barcode scan your own purchases, with every square inch covered by cameras to try to keep people honest. Like most honor-pay systems, they just pull the location out if they get stiffed too often. Also, huge markup.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Has anyone mentioned, that those corner stores provide taxes and license fees to the city governments where they are located? If this Bodega shuts them down, where will the taxes come from? If the cities try to extract them out of Bodega, it will dance so prettily in the courts to keep from paying them. Those two jerks do their target marks and their cities no favors.
--- Andy West http://andywest.org
Is it in the job description that douchebaggery is a prerequisite to work for Google? They are, quite simply put, scum.
I sexually identify as a bodega, and I object to the use of the hetero-normative term "mom and pop". Some of these stores are run by lesbians, gays, trannies, and two spirit marsupials. My favorite place to grab an afternoon snack is run by a polysexual demigirl and xir multigender partner. Between the two of them they have one vagina, two penises, and three fully responsive tulpas.
Others have already pointed out: "they've invented the vending machine", and "how could they get funding for such trivial shit".
On a slightly more serious, but no less critical note, three criticisms:
- This is a business model with a huge logistics tail. Plus a lot of personnel: someone has to re-stock their little shops, someone has to clean them, etc.. This requires a lot of low-paid personnel, who will require supervision, and on up the chain. A Mom'n'pop business actually has the advantage here, because they mostly employee relatives and people they know.
- These microshops won't carry most of what people actually need and/or want at odd hours: perishables like bread and milk, or else high-margin items like alcohol and tobacco that actually keep lots of little shops in business.
- Nice neighborhoods aren't going to shop in little boxes. Put unattended boxes in not-nice neighborhoods, and they will get trashed, robbed, and vandalized
So it's hard to see who the customers are going to be, and harder to see how they're going to make any money. OTOH, this is all a social good: some VCs clearly have too much money. By throwing it at doomed-to-fail enterprises like Juicero and Bodega, they're putting their money back into circulation. That's really nice of them, don't you think?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I am almost 50 and I have never needed one of these stores. Perhaps it's because I grew up in a rural area and just did without until the next trip to the store.
Who cares? I don't need to know Elon Musk worked at Paypal every time they talk about him.
Seriously, this makes as much sense as Juicero. An expensive device to serve up a product you can get for less using old technology. I can't see this taking over anything, except a bunch of out-of-touch VC's money.
On the plus side, you can work for them and not really feel guilty when all you do is goof off at work, since no amount of effort is going to make this service successful.
I don't know, but it works for me.
I heard the Colorado version will stock Weed and Chips! They'll make a fortune!
Shut your filthy commie mouth.
I want to be the one to tell someone pitching an idea like this that it's stupid, and they should fuck off and get a job.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
With their proposed setup they won't be able to sell any of the high volume and high markup items that stores usually make most of their money on such as tobacco , alcohol, lotto tickets and fountain drinks. I suppose origin of this is easily explained by last week's article on the rampant drug and LSD use in SV.
What happens when you open the "box" with your card and then some asshole comes up behind you and grabs shit and runs off? Looks like you just got robbed and not the Bodega as they will charge you for it...
Looks like they've managed to make an un-improved version of a standard vending machine. The only advantage I can see is that it can fit larger items than most standard vending machines and using apps may attract some. As many others are noting the reason why this thing will have little effect on convenience stores is its lack of alcohol/tobacco due to our draconian prohibition laws here in the "freedom loving" US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_convenience_store Basically: big-ass vending machine. From what I've read in the past, they usually have remote camera operators keeping an eye on things. One of the nice things is that you can get plenty of cold stuff like a gallon of milk or whatever quite easily.
I love how these guys can get money for inventing a vending machine that works via camera, rather than pushing buttons to select products. How the heck are they going to deal with the inevitable failures of the machine? It's gonna screw up now and then for lots of reasons, and then what? What if I get home and find out it overcharged me? What if someone runs up behind me while I've got it open and grabs items and runs off?
Seriously, there might be a place for this tech, but these guys are making way too much out of it.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
With a vending machine, I know that the same product is going to be there every single day. Sure, occasionally something gets switched out, but there's enough choices where I usually find something I want.
But this looks far too random. I get the Gatorade and the M&M's. But a Nike sports bag? iPhone case? Cleaning spray? Flour and sugar? These aren't impulse buys. I get the plan is to predict what people will want in the various settings these Bodegas exist, but that's generally not how consumers shop for these items. Impulse items are setup at strategic locations, like Point-of-Sales or business entrances or areas of heavy pedestrian traffic, to encourage people to buy on impulse. But so many of these items are not impulse purchases, they are planned purchases. I go to the grocery store when I have a list of items I want to buy. I'm not going to pay a premium for flour and sugar from a Bodega when I also need to get milk and eggs anyways. And I just started going to the gym three months ago; I found myself a bag and planned out everything I needed well in advance. And with planned items, I know where I need to go in order to buy them. It doesn't look like I can trust a Bodega to always carry what I need, nor always have it be in an accessible location for me to access. (One picture has a Bodega in an apartment building. That limits your customers to only those that live in the apartment. Another has one at the gym, limiting your customers to those gym members.)
I just don't see this succeeding.
You know who is forcing unsustainable wages is the people who want more money than the market value of the product or service they can supply.
If a baboon in India who can't use a toilet can do your job what does that say about you? Second, why can't you work for less money than the baboon from India? If the baboon is willing to do the job its situation must be worse than yours therefore it is more humanitarian and ethical to give him the job. If you were in a more troubled situation why aren't you willing to work for less money? Isnt it more ethical to help the ones suffering and hitting the most? Faced with two crying children .. one is well fed and crying for sprinkles on their ice cream the other us crying from starvation .. which one would you help?
I'm imaging a comic where first we see a bodega box, then a redbox is put next to it in case people want to get a movie while getting their bodego stuff, then a porta potty is put next to those two in case people need to use the restroom while using the bodega box and redbox, etc. Slowly more and more boxes are added and then a person is hired to manage all the boxes. Finally a building is built around all the boxes and the person to protect them from the weather. And now a bodega store is shown.
As a foreigner, how would you handle my out-of-country license?
And if you do start reading Card Data -- then comes the inevitable security problems with handling all that data. (Should some company start to just sucking it up)
It's what happens to Wall-marts in tornado alley.
Probably no worse than human clerks. I recall once reading a story of an English tourist who went to a liquor store and showed his passport to prove his age. They wouldn't take it (IIRC, somewhere in Westchester Co., NY). He pointed out that he had a UK passport, a T-shirt on with UK dates, and an English accent, and they said "tough, we only take NY state licenses, find somewhere else to go."
It should be called "Brodega". Only VC-funded Bros can come up with an idea this bad.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
They should partner with Coinstar (parent of Redbox) who has been working on specialized "kiosks" for years now and may have already worked out some of the gotchas.
An app will allow you to unlock the box and cameras powered with computer vision will register when you're shoved out of the way by a couple of teenagers in ski masks who will then grab everything they can, shove it into bags and run off, automatically charging your credit card for everything they just stole. The entire process happens without a person actually manning the âoestore.â
I enjoy walking to the bodega, mini-super, "pulperia"- whatever name you fancy. Do we have to throw technology at everything? The problem here, as I see it, is that these two Google cast aways will build this out, and people will flock to it because it's new and convenient. We love to keep chipping away at the places and the people of the past. Now we no longer have to talk to the sleepy 7-11 attendant? That's an experience, not an inconvenience. The world we continue to (de)construct is turning into very lonely one where we can't even fucking buy a candy bar without a fucking mobile phone- and we keep eliminating living, breathing people from our every day experience. Keep your goddam "Bodega" apps motherfuckers.
Thanks Oz!
When I was a child I envisioned a future where there actually would be zombies cannibalizing one another.
I sincerely thank the left for making my dreams come true. Sure it's a little sick to want to live in Terry Gilliam's Brazil . But hey -- if its gonna happen anyway, it a high quality outlook is to enjoy it.
And as a guy who actually grew up in a rough neighborhood (think 241st Street, Bronx for those who are familiar with that zip code), and as a reasonably successful adult has lived in a bunch desirable city locations (NYC SOHO, LA West Hollywood, SF, French Quarter NoLa) -- I completely concur with everyone else here who has pointed out WIC, Food Stamps, Regulated Goods (Tobacco, Alcohol), Perishables (the bodega mini-deli is pretty important), glorified MiniBar. But hey -- APPS!
Maybe they could hire the crew from Juicero and skip all the HR.
BRAAAAINS....Thanks for the post. Rock on Oz.
Yo SexConker -- remember that in NY we also have 'Corner Koreans.' As a fan of social drama I think they should use that next. Followed by 'Ghetto Chinese.' I think they are safe because I am highly certain my Korean and Chinese pals are WAY too busy building actual businesses or obtaining STEM or trade degrees to care.
Yeah NWF -- but think about the youtube pranks!!! You couldn't fit an actual human in a Capri Sun, er, I mean Juicero bag. But a vending coffin?!? Holyshit the hijinks I could pull with something of that size. More uses midgets, my friend. That is ALWAYS a good thing.
Marcus
Do we? So far this year, I've brought 3 sets of train tickets on the Internet and ... nope, that's it. No, sorry, one foreign book, which I bundled with a couple of other to optimise the use of the delivery charge. The train tickets you collect at the station.
I've checked and compared prices on goods using websites, but when a â70 bit of furniture attracts a £25 delivery charge and a choice of delivery dates between 10 days and 14 days in the future, I'll damned well walk up to the store, pick it off the shelf and carry it home myself this evening.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"