Scab shops

[hash tag]

Scab tills are so yesterday, scab shops are the future. There were 270,000 checkout operators, we lost 190,000 during the last year, most of them are women. Designed to make shopping simpler but more likely to cut down on staff wages and shoplifting. Yet another way of excluding certain sectors of society.

Do smart supermarkets herald the end of shopping as we know it?

A new breed of supermarkets means the days of queues, checkouts and shoplifting are numbered. But what else will we lose when no-transaction shopping becomes the norm?

www.theguardian.com

 

[hitmouse]

I mean, the article says you won't be able to enter the shops without downloading an app, but I reckon where there's a will there's a way:

 

[weltweit]

Scab tills, in the numbers some UK supermarkets are using them should have led to a reduction in prices, I haven't seen any evidence of that though.

 

[platinumsage]

My mum stopped driving when she could no longer find non-self-service petrol stations, because she didn't want to dispense petrol herself.

 

[hash tag]

The article quoted infers scab tills have been reduced, in part due to shoplifting, which creates greater queues at peopled tills probably because many of them have been phased out.

 

[weltweit]

The article quoted infers scab tills have been reduced, in part due to shoplifting, which creates greater queues at peopled tills probably because many of them have been phased out.

I didn't read the article, I am bored with G asking me for money. There are opportunities for shop lifting with scab tills, however there is usually an employee lurking around them ime.

Where there is a human operated till I will go there unless there are massive queues.

 

[MickiQ]

I mean, the article says you won't be able to enter the shops without downloading an app, but I reckon where there's a will there's a way:

new wave consumerism

 

[weltweit]

People need jobs!

 

[MickiQ]

I have a vision of people who haven't paid being chased by a huge white ball like in the Prisoner (showing my age there). It will be interesting to see how these things pan out. I suspect they probably have a limited market, I can't see every shop going down this route.

 

[StoneRoad]

Is this "scab shop" the unstaffed large kiosk type place ... ?

I've seen them a few times in "service stations" and a couple of main-line railway stations ...

If so, as with scab tills, I'll not use them unless there is absolutely no other option.

People need jobs !

 

[NoXion]

People need jobs!

I think people deserve better jobs than having to deal with the worst that the general public can throw at them, while being paid a pittance.

 

[bluescreen]

I think people deserve better jobs than having to deal with the worst that the general public can throw at them, while being paid a pittance.

Yes. Meanwhile...

 

[hash tag]

I think people deserve better jobs than having to deal with the worst that the general public can throw at them, while being paid a pittance.

Unlike bus drivers, carers, deliver drivers, Amazon employees etc.

 

[Maggot]

Scab tills are so yesterday, scab shops are the future. There were 270,000 checkout operators, we lost 190,000 during the last year, most of them are women. Designed to make shopping simpler but more likely to cut down on staff wages and shoplifting. Yet another way of excluding certain sectors of society.

Do smart supermarkets herald the end of shopping as we know it?

A new breed of supermarkets means the days of queues, checkouts and shoplifting are numbered. But what else will we lose when no-transaction shopping becomes the norm?

www.theguardian.com

No, we lost 190,000 retail workers, some of whom were checkout staff.

 

[Maggot]

People need jobs!

Vacancies are at record highs, over a million. Staff shortages in many areas.

 

[Dom Traynor]

I always use the scab tills if I'm not buying alcohol. The less I have to talk to people when I don't have to, the better. Retail jobs are far more impacted by online shopping than by scab tills, although no doubt they do have some impact.

 

[Ĝasper]

The self service computers usually crash anyway and you end up waiting for the one worker to let you carry on.

 

[ska invita]

The article quoted infers scab tills have been reduced,

not seeing that, ever growing IME
my local tesco extra often has no-one on the tills, same as the coop - you have to ask to get someone to staff it

 

[Sprocket.]

People need jobs!

We said this when they shut the shipyards, steelworks, mines and print works.

 

[MickiQ]

They're currrently in the 'testing the water' phase of this, I can see some demand for it but I can't imagine it making much inroad into the large supermarkets where most people do their 'main' shop. I think the sort of people who are likely to use it are the people who 'nip out' in their lunch break to get a few things though of course the most important workplace trend of the past couple of years in WFH is liable to thin out such a market greatly.
I think we will see more of these places but I don't think they are going to become a dominant shopping trend.

 

[danny la rouge]

The article quoted infers scab tills have been reduced, in part due to shoplifting, which creates greater queues at peopled tills probably because many of them have been phased out.

I haven’t read the article because I’m bored with the Guardian nagging me, but does the article infer or imply? I’d guess the latter, but the former is possible.

 

[hash tag]

If I were an unscrupulous investor it's where my money would be going. Amazon have a few up and running, Tesco, one or two, Aldi and Morrisons are known
to be thinking about it. I have a hunch there may well be at least 5 different chains doing this by the end of the year and I think many younger people will buy into it.

 

[tim]

Aldi's first scab shop is on Greenwich High Road and you'll be glad to know that things are not going well. The retail space is a former Coop which became a Costcutter and then a poudshop and the adjacent chicken shop. They started converting the building in August 2020 and finished building works about a year later. It was announced that they were opening in October last year which was then put back to November. It still isn't open but they've had full shelves including perishables on and off since the autumn. Hordes of pseudoshoppers turn up every other week or so to trial the system, and then go away again.

The sad pictures of nothing much happening are from earlier this afternoon

 

[hash tag]

Problems wit technology working in situ? I am sure it will be up and running soon.
I am being a luddite not wanting these things.

 

[NoXion]

The self service computers usually crash anyway and you end up waiting for the one worker to let you carry on.

They work just fine in my experience. Only slowed down by the need to have booze approved by a human being. But then I hardly ever go into the actual supermarket at all these days. Delivery is a far superior experience.

 

[pogofish]

We said this when they shut the shipyards, steelworks, mines and print works.

Flush plumbing devastated the nightsoil industry and incidentally triggered the rise of industrial/chemical fertilisers and the creation of a police force.

Few technological innovations have had such a marked affect on the balance society of their times!

 

[Sprocket.]

Flush plumbing devastated the nightsoil industry and incidentally triggered the rise of industrial/chemical fertilisers and the creation of a police force.

Few technological innovations have had such a marked affect on the balance society of their times!

The point is it’s always the poor bloody workers and never the toffs that suffer.

 

[hash tag]

The point is it’s always the poor bloody workers and never the tiffs that suffer.

And many people who can't use this technology ( or choose not to).

 

[MickiQ]

The point is it’s always the poor bloody workers and never the toffs that suffer.

I'm pretty sure that the introduction of modern plumbing was a massive positive that benefitted everyone not just the rich even if some people lost their jobs as a direct result of it.
The thing is Luddism just doesn't work, technology which is probably the most single driver of social change marches inexorably on and nothing can stop it or even slow it down. Where we fail as a society is not accepting this is inevitable and find things for the people who lose their jobs to do. We need to think as a society about what we are going to do with the people who lose their jobs to progress not just leaving it to each individual to retrain/live in a cave/find another dead end job.
This situation is only going to escalate, with a few notable exceptions every repetitive job is going to be automated out of existence over the next 20 or 30 years.

 

[Sprocket.]

I'm pretty sure that the introduction of modern plumbing was a massive positive that benefitted everyone not just the rich even if some people lost their jobs as a direct result of it.
The thing is Luddism just doesn't work, technology which is probably the most single driver of social change marches inexorably on and nothing can stop it or even slow it down. Where we fail as a society is not accepting this is inevitable and find things for the people who lose their jobs to do. We need to think as a society about what we are going to do with the people who lose their jobs to progress not just leaving it to each individual to retrain/live in a cave/find another dead end job.
This situation is only going to escalate, with a few notable exceptions every repetitive job is going to be automated out of existence over the next 20 or 30 years.

I understand all your points. You may or may not be aware that I am a recently retired robotics engineer. Moving into that field as engineering progressed through the 47 years I spent in mechanical engineering maintenance.
My most recent work involved installing, commissioning and maintaining engineering and material handling robotic systems.
You have no idea the feelings of guilt I have towards the manual workers my chosen profession has displaced.