# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/41 "2021-10-29T14:03:54Z")
I think Amazon is working on having their Robots pick your order and have it ready for pickup. Sounds like that would be something you want. ---
**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, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/42 "2021-10-29T14:14:14Z")
…if the robots would then bring it to my house, then, yes. I’ve been doing mostly curbside pickup since the pandemic started, and while that’s great for what it is, there are limitations. The store doesn’t always have the exact item I want, and substitutions are always a gamble. Also, there are some items I’d like to examine myself, like produce or meat. I have some unusual standards that would be hard to explain to a robot, or even a human. So there’s still some value in my going to the store itself, and picking out my own items. It’s just all the other crap I hate, like waiting in lines. I really, _really_ hate waiting in lines. I’ve been known to leave a store without shopping\*, rather than line up if the lines are too long. Even self checkout doesn’t help there, in fact, there’s always at least one idiot who can’t figure out the machine, and so slows everything down even more. \*I used to live in a condo across the street from a major grocery store, and it was great. I could see how busy it was before I even left my apartment, and so just wouldn’t even leave my building if it was too busy. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/43 "2021-10-29T14:18:38Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > I recently noticed that both the Giant and Weis Markets near me are starting to install automated checkout lanes. is this a common occurrence near you? Yes and it’s awesome. There is still a traditional checkout lane or two for grandma with the coupons undergoing confusion balancing her checkbook but for the rest of us with shit to do it’s a godsend. I notice I buy less and go more often so pick fresh food over cans. This, combined with frequenting fast food places less because I won’t eat in my car and it tastes like trash 10 minutes later when I get home are the few silver linings of COVID for me. ---
**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, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/44 "2021-10-29T14:19:39Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > 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. It’s not the technology, I think it’s because stores benefit from having customers wander around aimlessly looking for stuff, as you get a lot more impulse buying in that case. But if they could work in advertising or something like that, then you will probably see just that. I think stores could do this right now, as a lot of their shelves are already RFIDed and in an automated system that is used for shelf arrangement and stocking purposes. Or, maybe we’ll get our AR (augmented reality) where your own AI will project stuff into your field of view that you have shown interest in or bring to your attention stuff it thinks you might like. I’ve heard they can get 40% saturation without inducing seizure in most cases… 😛 ---
**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 29, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/45 "2021-10-29T14:19:40Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > 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. So, Amazon Go (convenience store version) and Amazon Fresh. Well, they do make you scan a code on your phone to enter first so you have to momentarily break stride. And the technology ended up not being RFID based. More like cameras everywhere and computer vision analysis, although I _strongly_ suspect human involvement somewhere in the process at least sometimes. Oh, and the receipt is emailed to you. Pffft. paper receipts… ---
**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, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/46 "2021-10-29T14:25:14Z")
Or your phone just beeps to offer you coupons or alert you to sales on stuff you’re examining or buying. ---
**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, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/47 "2021-10-29T14:25:26Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > So, Amazon Go (convenience store version) and Amazon Fresh. Yeah, that’s pretty close to what I want. Now I just need it to be pretty close to where I live! ---
**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 29, 2021, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/48 "2021-10-29T14:26:44Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Now I just need it to be pretty close to where I live! World domination takes time! ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/49 "2021-10-29T15:06:29Z")
What I want… Smart refrigerator, freezer, shelves that can figure out what I use and how frequently. It knows I need a gallon on milk by Thursday and a bunch of bananas by Saturday. Make special orders by telling Alexa. “Alexa, I want two kumquats by Monday”. My home shopping system sends an order to the store - it would know when. Robots at the store fills the order and sends the stuff to my home (drones or whatever) Robots at home takes the stuff off the porch and puts it away. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/50 "2021-10-29T15:17:08Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > 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. You can do that on the Home Depot website (they probably have an app to). You search for an item, and it shows you what aisle it is. You can even bring up a map of the store. I know Target has that as well. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/51 "2021-10-29T15:21:05Z")
Home Depot does have it, though they are often wrong. Almost as often as not. Lowes has the same and seems to be accurate most of the time. I didn’t know Target had that, but makes sense for any store doing curbside and delivery. Walmart has it, but they’re worse than Home Depot. But Walmart has a lot of problems with stock it seems like. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/52 "2021-10-29T15:41:49Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > 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. Home Depot’s current app will tell you where something is in the store and if it’s in stock. I know Wal Mart’s app does too. Costco…I am pretty sure their business model is to not make it obvious where things are in the store, so that you spend time browsing and buy stuff you didn’t intend on buying because you happened upon it in the store. They loosely organize items in sections but they don’t label the sections. And sometimes they move stuff. It’s actually one of the things that bugs me about Costco…not that I can’t find stuff (browsing isn’t that bad), but that everyone in the store is browsing and staring at the products and no one is looking where they’re going or moving in a very predictable way. It makes me very anxious. ---
**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, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/53 "2021-10-29T15:43:24Z")
I totally agree. And it’s worse when there are little kids running around in Costco. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/54 "2021-10-29T15:44:12Z")
Good, I’m glad someone else noticed this and I’m not crazy. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/55 "2021-10-29T22:55:32Z")
I don’t know if this qualifiers as “more automated”, but it does involve less human servicing–I’ve noticed a trend of more self-service checkouts that only accept electronic payments, and which don’t accept cash. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/56 "2021-10-30T03:40:49Z")
The Stop and Shop near me has traditional attendant-scanned lanes, self-scanning lanes, scanning guns to use while still in the aisles, and iPhone and Android apps so you can use your phone instead a gun. It also has a very conservatively designed robot named “Marty” (nothing remotely human about it except some stock plastic googly eyes glued on) that patrols the aisles for spills. Marty is also very conservatively programmed; it stops dead whenever a human comes anywhere near it. ---
**Author:** ![netverse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/958977/32.png) [@netverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netverse)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/57 "2021-10-30T10:15:04Z")
Nope, not here, only self check out. Other than that, I have seen Walmart put up a different approach to pickup, with this giant towering dispenser, where they put merchandise in it, and the person comes to it and gets their item that they ordered. I also have seen Little Caesar do their own version, where people order online, come to the store and enter the code on the machine and open the door to get their pizza. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/58 "2021-10-30T11:22:25Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Eliminating jobs, one store at a time. Not eliminating jobs. Eliminating employees and wages. You’re doing the job, and you’re not getting paid for it, and you’re not getting a price break either. Personally, I always use the cashier if one is available. It’s no extra charge, and I don’t have to do the labor. I reckon someday they’ll wise up and implement a surcharge to use the cashier, and sometime after that a surcharge for the privilege of using the self-scanner. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/59 "2021-10-30T12:05:50Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Costco…I am pretty sure their business model is to not make it obvious where things are in the store, so that you spend time browsing and buy stuff you didn’t intend on buying because you happened upon it in the store. They loosely organize items in sections but they don’t label the sections. And sometimes they move stuff. It’s actually one of the things that bugs me about Costco…not that I can’t find stuff (browsing isn’t that bad), but that everyone in the store is browsing and staring at the products and no one is looking where they’re going or moving in a very predictable way. It makes me very anxious. Totally agree. Costco shuffles locations of items around seemingly randomly (although I’m sure it’s not random). My Costco recently moved the _entire bread aisle_, just for S&Gs. I think they have two big wheels in the back room, one labeled with products, the other with locations. On the first of the month they give both a spin to see what they’re going to move where that month. Maybe spinning the wheel is a perk of winning Employee of the Month. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380/60 "2021-10-30T12:33:43Z")
I’ve tried the traditional checkout, self-checkout, and automated (scan as you shop) checkout. I must be an outlier here, because I prefer self checkout. I can bag items grouped together exactly as I want them, and I get to choose how many items go in each bag. And I never have to answer “paper or plastic?” The stores here usually have one line of customers feeding six self-checkout stations - so the line moves pretty quickly. It can be a hassle when coupons have to be given to an attendant, or an item scans incorrectly, or the weighing function goes wonkers. But those events have been infrequent enough that I’ve been willing to put up with them. (It’s also given me a new appreciation for the work that cashiers do. Now when I use traditional checkouts, I try to arrange packages on the belt so the cashier can easily pick them up and scan them. Handles on the milk jugs turned toward the cashier, etc.) I’ve only tried the automated (scan as you shop) twice. The rapid turnaround at the checkout was a plus. But, both times there was a fault with the scanner. If this system improves I might try it again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-grocery-store-becoming-more-automated/953380.md?page=4)