# Is your grocery store becoming more automated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [October 28, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380 "2021-10-28T12:46:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/21 "2021-10-28T17:04:26Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Including them in the manufacturing process tho, that’d be awesome. They’ve been tiny for quite a while now. 14 years ago [they were already smaller than the width of a human hair](http://pinktentacle.com/2007/02/hitachi-develops-rfid-powder/). ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/22 "2021-10-28T17:41:09Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > None of the supermarkets where I shop (suburban Chicago) have any sort of automated shopping/check-out yet. Amazon Fresh Store opening soon in Morton Grove. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/23 "2021-10-28T18:30:26Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Has any store that has gone the automation route actually then lowered its prices? The thing is, _you’d never know if they did._ Having a few people not working - most of the employees are still working, of course - is such a small change in the overall picture that the long term effect on prices will be lost amongst a thousand other effects on prices. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/24 "2021-10-28T18:42:20Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > None of the supermarkets where I shop (suburban Chicago) have any sort of automated shopping/check-out yet. Here in Chicago proper, they’ve been using them for a long while. I hate what they stand for, job loss through automation, but I have to admit, I use them. Especially for small loads. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/25 "2021-10-28T19:47:46Z")
Isn’t that what self-checkout basically is? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/26 "2021-10-28T20:04:19Z")
But without the machines, which are expensive. Stores here haven’t gone full auto here, but one of the closest markets usually only has one cashier working and four self-checkout stations. Like someone mentioned, you get no price break for using self checkout, but someone(s) have lot their job. Oh, I see what you were saying. There may be a bit of confusion about self-checkout vis-a-vis automated checkout here. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/27 "2021-10-28T23:43:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Has any store that has gone the automation route actually then lowered its prices? How can you tell the difference between keeping prices the same and not raising them as other costs rise? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/28 "2021-10-29T07:25:21Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > EDIT: I might need to clarify that I don’t mean self-checkout. I don’t know that anyone needed it, but I figured I would do so just in case. > [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > What I’m thinking of is basically a reversed version of a current checkout-you put your stuff on a conveyor and swipe it, then pay and bag it. No grocery store employee needed except for a floater for technical issues. I’m confused. You specifically say you’re not talking about self checkout, and then go on to describe self checkout. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/29 "2021-10-29T09:20:33Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Eliminating jobs, one store at a time. Several years ago the store I work at ripped out half their self-checkout lanes and installed the old fashioned kind where a human cashier rings you up, requiring the hiring of more human beings. They are now planning to rip out some of those lanes and put self-checkouts back in, not because they’re eliminating jobs but because they can’t hire enough people to man them. Likewise, we now have an actual robot doing some of the inventory tracking on the shelves because, again, we couldn’t get enough people to apply for the job to hire enough people to do this work. No jobs eliminated, and the people who are at work are less stressed because they’re no longer (so much) overworked. I fully expect people to doubt what I say because it doesn’t fit the established narrative of evil corporate overlords twirling their mustaches as they replace people with machines, but at this point in time the machines are being brought in because they’re aren’t enough people willing to do the work. I’m just glad I’m not being constantly asked to do overtime anymore. > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Eliminating the lower paid jobs, one store at the time. In Belgium and France Carrefour and Delhaize have been eliminating the cashier jobs as fast as they can force the customers to do the job themselves since before the pandemic Maybe it’s different in Europe, but in the US the cashiers are not the lowest paying jobs in the store. And I don’t doubt that up until recently a major incentive has been to cut labor costs, but at this point in time my store is doing it because they’re can’t get enough people willing/able to do the job. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/30 "2021-10-29T10:34:01Z")
I took self-checkout to mean where you go to an individual station to scan your items, weigh and pay. Maybe I’m wrong or used it wrongly? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/31 "2021-10-29T10:42:42Z")
You wrote > What I’m thinking of is basically a reversed version of a current checkout-you put your stuff on a conveyor and swipe it, then pay and bag it. No grocery store employee needed except for a floater > I took self-checkout to mean where you go to an individual station to scan your items, weigh and pay. I can’t tell what you think the difference is - the first quote doesn’t rule out an individual station and I’m not at all sure what you mean by “reversed version” where you put stuff on a conveyor belt and swipe and pay and bag it - but that sounds very much like the self-checkouts I’ve been to and **not** like every item I put in my cart gets automatically scannned or even that I scan while I shop. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/32 "2021-10-29T11:13:54Z")
Yes, I think I’ve confused myself. The reversed is what I meant by self-checkout. It’s just like the “normal” lane checkout except you’re in the cashier position of scanning. But now I realize that the individual station area is called self-checkout. _Sigh._ What I meant to ask is if other stores are putting in the first type-the conveyors where you do the scanning instead of having an employee do it (which we had until very recently). ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/33 "2021-10-29T11:30:53Z")
I think I may understand what you’re talking about - you’re distinguishing the self checkout that [are in a group](https://imaginenext.ingrammicro.com/data-capture/pos/addressing-the-ugly-side-of-self-checkout-shoplifting) and have no conveyor belt, where you take items from your cart, scan them and put them in a bag immediately from the ones that look like traditional checkouts with a (pre-COVID) individual line, conveyor belt where you put your purchases before scanning, and them you scan them and put them on another belt and then bag your purchases - IOW the ones that look exactly like the lanes staffed by cashier. But they really are just different styles of self-checkouts used by different sorts of businesses - the warehouse club where people can use the self checkout for a full cart of 10 cases of water can’t really use the “small platform unexpected -weight” in bagging area type of self-checkout although Target can. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/34 "2021-10-29T13:15:27Z")
I can promise you that the scan-as-you-shop applications are absolutely not cost saving devices. There are certain niche customers who love the application and they tend to be high income, high-education, high margin customers and very loyal. But the cost to serve them is extremely high. Maybe if 20% rather than 0.2% of the customer population used it, it might make it cheaper to maintain and administer on a per transaction basis, but as it stands (and this is based on 10+ years at a couple of different retailers) it is much more expensive to have this tool available than it would ever save in cashier time. Self checkout is a different story. Some people LIKE self checkout (though apparently none post here). You can see people see an empty staffed register and walk over to the self checkout system. Some idiotic people (old school retail operators) claim that they are all engaged in shoplifting, but there is pretty good video surveillance on self checkouts and the overwhelming majority of customers using it are perfectly honest. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/35 "2021-10-29T13:20:38Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > And I don’t doubt that up until recently a major incentive has been to cut labor costs, but at this point in time my store is doing it because they’re can’t get enough people willing/able to do the job. Automating the process instead of compensating employees to where they want the job is just another way of cutting labor costs. I’m sure that, if they offered a hundred dollars an hour for the job (just to make a point), it would be filled immediately. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/36 "2021-10-29T13:22:13Z")
All the stores near me have automated checkout and have had it before Covid. A few of the stores are down to only a few of the old-style checkout lanes left. I’ve noticed QR code kiosks starting to pop up in some stores that tell you where to find certain items that are on sale or get a coupon on your phone as well. I suspect we’ll see RFID and tracking eventually so you can find what you are looking for without having to have someone from the store tell you, though stores love it when you wander around looking for stuff because you tend to pick something else up while looking, so the reason we don’t have this already is probably due to that more than the technology. Still, automation seems to be the new norm and I only see it expanding from here. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/37 "2021-10-29T13:24:10Z")
They can already use Bluetooth beacons to track people as they walk around the store, and probably do so just to look for patterns and see which displays cause people to stop and look. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/38 "2021-10-29T13:28:50Z")
Agreed, though that is on the store’s end. They have actually had that sort of tracking for a while. I was thinking that eventually, you’d see it on the consumer’s end, probably with a healthy dose of advertising mixed in. Looking for a certain brand of tomato sauce? Turn left in…10 feet…then look right. You are at your destination. And this product has a sale…buy 2 get one for $2. Also, if you are looking for pasta… ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/39 "2021-10-29T14:00:53Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I was thinking that eventually, you’d see it on the consumer’s end, probably with a healthy dose of advertising mixed in. Looking for a certain brand of tomato sauce? Turn left in…10 feet…then look right. You are at your destination Lots of people already do that **to** drive to the store, so why not keep doing it once you’re in the store? What I really want is an automated system that doesn’t add any steps. Many years ago IBM put out this ad: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/wzFhBGKU6HA/hqdefault.jpg "IBM RFID Commercial-The Future Supermarket") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFhBGKU6HA) That’s what I want. To just walk in, pick up what I need, and leave, without having to break stride. Anything less than this isn’t “fully automated” in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/40 "2021-10-29T14:02:51Z")
I’d like something like that (an app to locate individual items in the store) to find stuff in Home Depot and Costco. Both are enormous and it’s not always obvious where things are located. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380.md?page=3)