SUMMARY:
Amazon, the worldwide known electronic company, is beginning to create grocery stores... with no check out lines. After going through and selling book stores, retail chains, and electronic stores, they take on something bigger. The first store is to be in Seattle, where their headquarters are. For the checkout system, they plan on using an Amazon app. You go on, pay for the goods that you need outside of the store, then enter and just grab what you need. This may seem a little untrustworthy, but they explained that through computer vision and deep-learning technology, they can track the items as customers make their way through the store. However, Donald Trump has criticized Amazon's retailing, and they are afraid that he may add "job-killer" to that list of criticisms. Why? This company will be a threat to the 3.4 million Americans that work as cashiers. It will most likely cause a problem to those related to this kind of job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, for now, Amazon is starting slow and will be opening up the first store to Amazon employees only. They will be hopefully be opening to the public in the following year.
ANALYSIS:
Before reading this article, I had not heard of grocery stores with no checkout lines. I believe this is a very revolutionary idea that could change the future of grocery shopping or any retail stores. However, I do understand the crisis bubbling up through the lack of cashier jobs. It will cause a problem for those working in that field, because they may not be needed in the future if stores begin to convert to systems such as this. This article was presented in CNN Tech, so it portrays more to those that are technologically advanced. This is most likely because Amazon is an online shopping website, and is used most likely used by this sort of audience. Also, this event can be synthesized to the Industrial Revolution, because there were many new inventions and revolutionary ideas created around this era, and it led way to many new opportunities and electronic advances.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/05/technology/amazon-go-store/index.html
It seems like an interesting concept, but I am not sure that in practice that it will be practical. People generally like to look at the selection, especially when it comes to produce, for quality. Often, people also wind up buying more than they had on their list because they some across something that they need, or forgot to add to the list. It sounds like the Amazon app doesn't offer that flexibility, so I am not sure that people will be drawn to it as their main grocery store, but it does sound convenient!
ReplyDeleteGreat article. I agree the idea is more in keeping with the Industrial Revolution. Technology is ever changing so major companies like Amazon are playing right into the role. The online grocery shopping is awesome for staple items, but actually going into the grocery will not fade away like most pay phones or rotary phones,
ReplyDeleteWhoa, this is really cool, but in some ways it takes the practicality out of grocery shopping. It seems a little bit excessive to go out of the way and pick out everything you need beforehand before going to the store that you have to go to anyway to wait in a line that will probably last less than a minute anyway. It seems a bit superfluous to me.
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