Supermarkets discussion

[Bald Rick]

I suspect that before too long we'll see Amazon style camera technology. Amazon Fresh have it in their stores and Tesco Express and Sainsbury's Local both have trials. The Tesco Express store at Fulham Reach is interesting as the camera technology works differently - you pick up your items visit a till and press a button on the screen and everything you've picked up appears on the screen. It's like scan and go but without having to do the scanning! You then pay in the normal way. I visited and tried to trick the system by picking things up and putting things down but I got charged correctly. Also you don't have to use a Clubcard (althogh using them is encouraged)

This is great news, bring it on. It will save me from being on the second naughty step for having missed scanning something in my trolley (59p of mixed chillies last week )

 

[SuspectUsual]

RFID tags are relatively expensive compared to barcodes. They are more useful for clothing where you need to keep track of multiple sizes and need some theft control

They also can’t deal with products sold loose by weight. (They can manage products sold pre-packed by weight, like roasting joints, but it’s a bit of a faff upstream)

 

[Belperpete]

I use my phone, and put things straight in the bag. There’s never anything I need to sort at the till except age verification, and the occaisonal security tag to be removed (although once I forgot and got the Taittinger home before realising! Special Birthday present, honest). All the nectar discounts etc done automatically. So easy.

Most supermarkets seem to like putting veggies near the entrance. Putting a bag of tomatoes or strawberries in your bag, followed sometime later by a load of cans isn't going to end well.

With a manned checkout I can make sure that I put the heavy items on the belt first, and the squashables last, so that as I pack my bag the squashables go on top of the heavies. I can achieve the same at a self checkout by scanning the heavies first. How do you achieve this when you are walking around the supermarket putting things straight into your bag? Do you have to find the heavies first, and then retrace your steps to find the squashables, or are you constantly reorganising the contents of your bag?

 

[jon81uk]

press a button on the screen and everything you've picked up appears on the screen. It's like scan and go but without having to do the scanning! You then pay in the normal way. I visited and tried to trick the system by picking things up and putting things down but I got charged correctly. Also you don't have to use a Clubcard (althogh using them is encouraged)

The scales at Sainsbury's for loose fruit and veg for self-scan have cameras now to work out what you put on them, but one item at a time of course. It struggles with small pieces of root ginger.

Most supermarkets seem to like putting veggies near the entrance. Putting a bag of tomatoes or strawberries in your bag, followed sometime later by a load of cans isn't going to end well.

With a manned checkout I can make sure that I put the heavy items on the belt first, and the squashables last, so that as I pack my bag the squashables go on top of the heavies. I can achieve the same at a self checkout by scanning the heavies first. How do you achieve this when you are walking around the supermarket putting things straight into your bag? Do you have to find the heavies first, and then retrace your steps to find the squashables, or are you constantly reorganising the contents of your bag?

I do a mix of reorganising and a dedicated bag for delicate items. So start by putting softer things in one bag and heavier in a seperate one, then as you go round move some of the softer things into the other bag on top of the heavier ones.

 

[Bald Rick]

Most supermarkets seem to like putting veggies near the entrance. Putting a bag of tomatoes or strawberries in your bag, followed sometime later by a load of cans isn't going to end well.

A) I have seperate bags for fresh & chilled, soo unpacking for the fridge is easier.
B) I don’t buy bags of tomatoes or strawberries (fruit of the devil)
C) I very rarely buy anything canned.

 

[Gloster]

I do wonder about all these time or money (for the supermarkets) systems. I walk round the shop putting what I want in the basket, go to the tills, put my bag down on one side, pick the items up and pass them across the reader before putting them down on the other side, press a few buttons, shove some bits of metal and paper into the machine and sometimes get some back, pack my bag and leave. Now that Morrisons seem to have sorted out their problems with discount labels I don’t have many problems and it seems to be much quicker than fiddling about with all sorts of different technologies. Remember, the supermarkets are making you do more work so that they can make more money.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

One thing that I did notice when last visiting the Sainsbury's supermarket at Cheadle Royal was that near the checkouts, there were staff who noticed elderly people with quite an amount of shopping in the trolley they were wheeling who asked if they could help by taking the elderly shoppers to the self serve section with a long attached counter, passing all the shopping through the scanners and then packing the items in the bags that the customer had brought with them.

 

[takno]

While i tend to agree with you, cameras arent that expensive, the software / logic and systems are already written, and it saves a load of money on checkouts, handsets, etc.

The cameras weren't that expensive, but it turns out that the technology just doesn't work, so a significant majority of baskets were being partly or mostly being determined by expensive humans.

Amazon have largely pulled out of it, writing off billions in the process. The trouble with the AI goldrush is that it's still cheaper to fake a lot of it on the assumption that you'll be able to get the tech to work in the future.

 

[Hadders]

The cameras weren't that expensive, but it turns out that the technology just doesn't work, so a significant majority of baskets were being partly or mostly being determined by expensive humans.

Amazon have largely pulled out of it, writing off billions in the process. The trouble with the AI goldrush is that it's still cheaper to fake a lot of it on the assumption that you'll be able to get the tech to work in the future.

Part of Amazon's problem is that you could only use their stores if you had their app. The Tesco Express trial I mentioned above has overcome that.

The tech isn't good enough to scale up to a supermarket size yet but I suspect it won't be far away. It's not going to be this year or b=next but it wouldn't surprise me if we see something in the next 10 years or so.

 

[takno]

Part of Amazon's problem is that you could only use their stores if you had their app. The Tesco Express trial I mentioned above has overcome that.

The tech isn't good enough to scale up to a supermarket size yet but I suspect it won't be far away. It's not going to be this year or b=next but it wouldn't surprise me if we see something in the next 10 years or so.

I think the problem is that it's a hard thing for people to do, let alone computers. It's highly questionable whether the benefit over self scan is anywhere near being able to justify the cost of the compute and cameras.

There's always the possibility of a breakthrough, but there's every chance that this whole model is 15 years away from viable and that somebody will think of a much simpler solution in the meantime.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Asda shrinking dramatically and equally would be unsurprised if they merged or went bust or similar

You making me think. ASDA merges with A.N.Other (probably Morrisons) and drags the two down.

I like to think Morrisons is too good to merge with ASDA. Long held the belief that ASDA is tired looking and not really so cheap. But my local Morrisons is now showing signs of decline.

 

[Hadders]

I think the problem is that it's a hard thing for people to do, let alone computers. It's highly questionable whether the benefit over self scan is anywhere near being able to justify the cost of the compute and cameras.

There's always the possibility of a breakthrough, but there's every chance that this whole model is 15 years away from viable and that somebody will think of a much simpler solution in the meantime.

I don't disagree but the point I'm making is the 'front-end' of supermarkets will continue to evolve. In 20 years time don't expect to see large numbers of self-checkouts at the front of the store where you go to pay. I don't exactly know what it will look like but the direction of travel is highly likely to involve some sort of automated payment process where you won't necessarily need to scan items yourself or visit a physical checkout to pay.

 

[jon81uk]

I do wonder about all these time or money (for the supermarkets) systems. I walk round the shop putting what I want in the basket, go to the tills, put my bag down on one side, pick the items up and pass them across the reader before putting them down on the other side, press a few buttons, shove some bits of metal and paper into the machine and sometimes get some back, pack my bag and leave. Now that Morrisons seem to have sorted out their problems with discount labels I don’t have many problems and it seems to be much quicker than fiddling about with all sorts of different technologies. Remember, the supermarkets are making you do more work so that they can make more money.

But using scan as you go is less work, I pack directly into my bags, no need to take things out of a basket or trolley and back into bags, they just go directly from shelf to bag.

 

[py_megapixel]

Part of Amazon's problem is that you could only use their stores if you had their app.

I don't think that was really the problem. The problem is that analysing images in real time, to the level of detail required to accurately determine what a customer is purchasing, is computationally expensive and, with current technology, impossible to do reliably.

This is a problem solved by barcodes, which are a standardised identifier intended to make it easy for machines to determine what an item is by "looking" at it...

The Tesco Express trial I mentioned above has overcome that.

In doing so, though, they've removed an enormous advantage of Scan and Go, which is that the handsets or apps keep track of what you've bought as you go.

They're also an excellent advertising opportunity for the supermarkets. Customers now carry around a device that in theory they could use to advertise to customers based on their past purchasing history, which items they've already picked up in this trip, which section of the store the customer is located in, the time of day, stock levels and probably a million other things I haven't thought of.

Tesco is already doing a bit of this sort of thing and no doubt we'll see more of it - since, used to its full potential, it brings many of the marketing advantages of e-commerce into the physical store environment as well. I can't imagine the supermarkets wanting to give this up easily.

I imagine the supermarkets will gradually try to push people away from handsets towards apps, so that they can have fewer handsets and save money that way. Perhaps they'll also start allowing payment through their apps as well. But I think the camera technology is a very long way off, if it happens at all.

 

[jon81uk]

In doing so, though, they've removed an enormous advantage of Scan and Go, which is that the handsets or apps keep track of what you've bought as you go.

No Tesco Express offers Scan and Go.

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I imagine the supermarkets will gradually try to push people away from handsets towards apps, so that they can have fewer handsets and save money that way. Perhaps they'll also start allowing payment through their apps as well

Sainsbury's, Asda, Co-Op & Waitrose all have scan as you go apps. Sainsbury's and Co-Op allow payment in the app in some smaller local stores.

 

[Buzby]

No Tesco Express offers Scan and Go.

Is this Tesco GetGo? Apparently they only have 5 stores kitted out and if that is the case, they’re really lagging their competitors!

 

[Howardh]

I often bypass "Value" anything, except beans, where the syrup can be tastless/awful - I can drain that and replace with tomato ketchup for a much better flavour! After all, beans are beans, not much you can do with them.

Other "value" rubbish = tinned potatoes, tinned peas!

But has anyone identified any "value" items which are as good as, if not better than more expensive options?

 

[takno]

I don't disagree but the point I'm making is the 'front-end' of supermarkets will continue to evolve. In 20 years time don't expect to see large numbers of self-checkouts at the front of the store where you go to pay. I don't exactly know what it will look like but the direction of travel is highly likely to involve some sort of automated payment process where you won't necessarily need to scan items yourself or visit a physical checkout to pay.

I can definitely agree with that

 

[adc82140]

I often bypass "Value" anything, except beans, where the syrup can be tastless/awful - I can drain that and replace with tomato ketchup for a much better flavour! After all, beans are beans, not much you can do with them.

Other "value" rubbish = tinned potatoes, tinned peas!

But has anyone identified any "value" items which are as good as, if not better than more expensive options?

Sainsbury's basics chocolate slabs. It's Belgian chocolate, and very tasty. But the Asda equivalent is foul, tastes like Hershey's.

 

[AlistairCowell]

Could be the Big Three next.

My town has an ASDA and a Morrisons just a short distance apart. There is a Lidl nearby and now there had just been a green-light for building an ALDI.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

You making me think. ASDA merges with A.N.Other (probably Morrisons) and drags the two down.

I like to think Morrisons is too good to merge with ASDA. Long held the belief that ASDA is tired looking and not really so cheap. But my local Morrisons is now showing signs of decline.

Then Morrisons may swallow up Asda which they did with Safeway as it may be perceived as slightly more upmarket than Asda also it is older having been established at the turn of the century (1890s-1900s) which Asda began in the 1960s if I'm right?

The huge hypermarket format of Asda would be out of fashion as no one would want to trudge through aisle after aisle taking up too much time. Then Lidl & Aldi would be more attractive & convenient due to their smaller layouts also online shoppers would rock up at Tesco & Sainsburys car parks to collect their orders without going inside.

A typical Morrisons store may be more palatable than navigating a huge Asda store.

A possible Morrisons takeover could see huge Asdas divided into regular Morrisons stores with other units let to other retailers.

Not sure if a merger would be enough to save them, a new post-Asda merged Morrisons would need to have decent & less greedy owners (tall order I know) but could deter some Asda shoppers - bulk buying large families - to Costco, Food Warehouse etc.

 

[jon81uk]

Is this Tesco GetGo? Apparently they only have 5 stores kitted out and if that is the case, they’re really lagging their competitors!

No, the comment I was replying to was talking about Scan and Go with handsets, which is only available in the regular size and extra stores, not express.
The other new system being trialed in one express store has a camera at the self-checkout https://www.tescoplc.com/tesco-to-i...hnology-on-self-service-tills-at-getgo-store/

Tesco have trialed the camera GetGo system (like Amazon Fresh) in a few stores but I don't think it is working well enough and has led to enough complaints about people not wanting to sign up that they now have the GetGo as a hybrid store with regular self-checkout (or the camera one as above) too https://www.tescoplc.com/tesco-to-open-three-more-getgo-stores-with-new-hybrid-format/

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Aug 2024 ==

But has anyone identified any "value" items which are as good as, if not better than more expensive options?

I buy the value soft cheese (like philidelphia) as it seems as good as other brands https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/mary-anns-dairy-soft-cheese-200g
Same with mozzarella balls https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-mozzarella--basics-125g

For beans I prefer Branston brand.

 

[SuspectUsual]

But has anyone identified any "value" items which are as good as, if not better than more expensive options?

Morrisons Jaffa cakes

 

[SuspectUsual]

Asda began in the 1960s if I'm right?

1949 although it’s evolved a lot since then

But an Asda / Morrisons merger does little to solve dither’s problems - the enormous mountains of debt suffocating them both

Yes there’s store duplication, but neither owns a significant amount of its store estate any more so there’s unlikely to be a big release of capital

 

[Howardh]

Morrisons Jaffa cakes

A lot of "own brands" are as good as - if not better than "named" brands, some might be identical! but as it happens I avoid Morrison's due to the annoying musak they play over the speakers. Although they do have the occasional "quiet hour" which is most agreeable.

 

[gg1]

Then Morrisons may swallow up Asda which they did with Safeway as it may be perceived as slightly more upmarket than Asda also it is older having been established at the turn of the century (1890s-1900s) which Asda began in the 1960s if I'm right?

Is Morrisons perceived as more upmarket? I've always seen both Asda and Morrisons as being comparable in that regard. In terms of the age of the brand, Morrisons may be older but Asda have been a nationwide brand for longer, opening stores outside northern England in the 70s compared to the 90s for Morrisons.

The huge hypermarket format of Asda would be out of fashion as no one would want to trudge through aisle after aisle taking up too much time. Then Lidl & Aldi would be more attractive & convenient due to their smaller layouts also online shoppers would rock up at Tesco & Sainsburys car parks to collect their orders without going inside.

I'm the exact opposite and much prefer huge stores as they generally stock both a much larger range of products and a greater stock of common products on the shelves. Time saved in navigating a smaller store is worthless if you then have to go to another store as there's a bunch of stuff on your shopping list which is out of stock.

 

[Acey]

Sainsburys own brand Yeast Extract ,prefer it to Marmite and much cheaper too !

 

[py_megapixel]

I don't really know what Morrisons has going for it now. Their stores are dated, cluttered and often more expensive than the competition. Their loyalty scheme doesn't seem to offer much. I think they're the only one of the chains which still has dedicated fresh meat/cheese counters, but that clearly isn't that much of a draw, otherwise the other supermarkets wouldn't have removed them.

It's a shame, as I used to quite like them, but I really don't see any reason to shop there any more.

 

[signed]

Amazon have largely pulled out of it, writing off billions in the process

The Amazon full no-contact stores in the US? Their tech barely ever worked with 70% of human review needed

Amazon Fresh kills “Just Walk Out” shopping tech—it never really worked

“AI” checkout was actually powered by 1,000 human video reviewers in India.

arstechnica.com

Amazon had more than 1,000 people in India working on Just Walk Out as of mid-2022 whose jobs included manually reviewing transactions and labeling images from videos to train Just Walk Out’s machine learning model


As of mid-2022, Just Walk Out required about 700 human reviews per 1,000 sales, far above an internal target of reducing the number of reviews to between 20 and 50 per 1,000 sales,

No wonder why they pulled out

 

[ChrisC]

I’m doing more and more of my shopping in more upmarket stores these days and I am finding that the own branded goods are very good quality and sometimes half the price of branded items in other stores.
For example a packet of M&S digestive biscuits is 80p in comparison to McVities which are at least £1.50. Waitrose cream crackers are 70p in comparison to Jacob’s which are anything between £1.20 and £1.50. Both are very good quality. I find both M&S and Waitrose pleasant shopping experiences and if you buy own brands they are usually good quality at a good price.

There‘s one big problem. They sell so many lovely luxury items that I am tempted to spend more money than I would elsewhere.