Sweet God, there is no such things as legitimate news any more. It's all shock and drama sensationalism, knee-jerk sound bites and eye teasers cooked up to catch your attention long enough for the real agenda----advertising. To sell you sh!t you don't even need.
All that said, the Amazon vs. Walmart fiasco has everyone completely believing A): Wally is going out of business, and B): all other retailers are soon to follow. C'mon. Think this through. On line retail is n e v e r going to completely replace real world shopping, and ain't nobody tryna have they groceries delivered by strangers staright into their homes. Then there's the jacked-up, over crowded tarnsportation issues---bad as it is now,can you imagine how the highways would be with delivery biz blasted out 9--10,000%?!
As time change so does technology and business must adapt. Kroger and all the other major retailers are adapting but online can and will never replace going to the store most people want to see the food products their getting or try on their clothes and what not. Cashiers may decline but someone will always have to stock shelves or make deli trays. Dont let the BS from the news or hearsay get you hyper up.
It's not scalable and it requires some degree of technical proficiency. I could see them absolutely cleaning up in downtown areas or near (or on?) college campuses, though.
If you really think about this, they are testing this in small stores which carry very limited product mix. This system most likely will not work in an "Big Box" were you have large spaces, differing displays designs and products that do not have a standard price. How many customer want fresh sliced deli meats or other service department items? Again, something that sounds great on paper or small development isn't adaptable in larger environments.
It has a looooooooong way to go before it's ready for supermarkets like Kroger or Walmart. I'm sure Kroger will use Scan, Bag, Go as a stepping stone to something more like Amazon Go 10-20 years from now. But there's just too many complexities in stores like ours. For instance, Amazon Go can't accept EBT or WIC, and yeah that would be difficult to implement in the technology, especially in states that still haven't transitioned to cards for WIC.
Then there's age verification, which yeah AGo has someone on their beer aisle checking IDs, but we have way more age restricted items than just alcohol. Finding a way to handle that with this tech would be either currently impossible or insanely expensive.
Then there are things like, paper coupons, cash, checks, coinstar, deli and bakery items, other random weight items, etc etc. Amazon Go's technology isn't ready to handle all of those complexities yet, so maybe in 20 years, it'll advance enough that Kroger will adapt it. But right now? You'll just see it as an excuse to aggressively rollout SBG and increase the number of SCOs
