CVS Is Turning Locked Shelves Into an Excuse to Make You Download Its App

[partial_accumen@lemmy.world]

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:

[reverendirreverence@lemmy.world]

I guess I am starting to be okay with "leaning in" and taking advantage off my "old guy" (false) technical ineptitude and will just pretend to shuffle up to a store employee and ask them to open those cabinets for me

[reverendirreverence@lemmy.world]

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

[esc27@lemmy.world]

Y'alls Aldi's must be different. Here, they are small stores with a mostly random inventory where it is common to see only one cashier and a checkout line stretching across the store.

[aa5b@lemmy.world]

Yeah, another reason not to go there. Unfortunately no impact since I already don’t.

Nearby one is 24h so I occasionally go there when everything else is closed, but that’s the only advantage they have

[sunzu2@thebrainbin.org]

The Germans know how to run an efficient grocery, I hope Aldi, trader joes and lidl destroy "thin margin" US parasites.

JFC fuck Kroger, fuck Safeway fuck expensive shit

Food is the common man necessity and it should be priced as such. We surely as fuck subsidize it, but the parasitic class still charges "market"

[aa5b@lemmy.world]

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

[gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Definitely not installing that shit.

[jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org]

I can't wait for someone with a flipper zero to just drive around unlocking cases in every CVS in town.

[ohvenus_baby@lemmy.ml]

I have never seen this. Been in many drug stores. Walmart does this. But not any drug stores I've seen.

[turkalino@lemmy.yachts]

It’s ultimately up to the franchise owner of each location and their subjective interpretation of how crime-ridden the area is

[randomcruft@lemmy.sdf.org]

Make profit machine go brrrrr!

[villainy@lemmy.world]

It took Valve years to build Steam into the juggernaut it is based on maximizing customer value and minimizing friction. Years! Like multiple of them! Who has time for that! I need my profits this quarter!

[partial_accumen@lemmy.world]

I remember Service Merchandise! That conveyor belt delivered magic.

[theminions@lemmy.world]

As someone who has a BS in Business, yes they taught this in business.

Similarly we had case studies on Wal-mart’s absolute domination of the logistics game which made them a powerhouse in the “before Amazon” times.

[lumelore@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Please use local drug stores. The chain stores are absolutely ripping you the fuck off.

[john89@lemmy.ca]

Why do people buy anything besides drugs at a CVS?

[john89@lemmy.ca]

Are they?

I think using goodrx.com has given me the best results to save money on drugs.

[taladar@sh.itjust.works]

They got killed by making it inconvenient to use legally purchased media by adding unskippable trailers, copy protection, things like the Sony rootkit,... and also empty boxes on the shelves with the actual media hidden behind the counter.

Making life harder for people trying to buy your product is never a good idea.

[taladar@sh.itjust.works]

Oh, don't get me wrong. Aldi's owners still very much got rich off it (they are among the richest people in Germany) so they are not great in that respect either.