• partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’m waiting for the ultimate reductive customer experience. These drug stores will eventually block off access to the shelves and aisles entirely. Instead, the front point-of-sale area and places where people used to wait in line with their purchases will be turned into a new blocked off large vestibule with floor to ceiling transparent glass. In there (where customers can access) will be kiosks which can control tele-presence robots that will let customers “walk the aisle” to look at product on shelves:

    If you want to make a purchase, you press a button on the kiosk and pay for it, then a human worker inside will fetch the item off the shelf for you and drop it in a transaction drawer where you pick up your item:

    • goatmeal@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      Let’s go one step further and make them a gig worker so CVS doesn’t have to pay them for downtime and instead we get to tip

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      There used to be a store called Service Merchandise with a similar model. Their floor was just a showroom with one of each item, sort of like a physical catalog. You just grab a ticket to buy stuff and wait for it to come up a conveyor, sort of like airline baggage claim. I always wondered why that model never succeeded: it was so convenient and would be even better now with automation and online shopping, qr codes

    • ReverendIrreverence@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      then a human worker inside will fetch the item off the shelf for you

      Soon enough that robot will complete that whole transaction and the humans will not be needed