DailyDirt: Do It Yourself Shopping -- Stores Without Employees?

Maybe you've been to a store with the self-check-out lanes where you have to scan and bag your own groceries. Some stores have had success with this kind of self-serve technology, but others haven't. Still, brick and mortar stores need to try out different ways to be more convenient for shoppers in order to compete with same-day shipping from various online retailers.

• In Sweden, a new grocery store (called Naraffar) doesn't have any cashiers and lets customers shop its aisles using a smartphone app. The store is open 24/7, and pre-registered customers unlock the store with their phones to pick out items that are charged to their credit cards automatically. It's basically a walk-in vending machine, but presumably there are some human workers who re-stock the shelves (or maybe not someday). [url]
• The job of a convenience store cashier isn't exactly glamorous, but about 22 years ago, a classic movie was released about a couple of guys working behind a counter. If you haven't seen Clerks, check it out before Clerks III comes out in 2018. [url]
• Paul Feldman started a bagel business that trusted people to pay for the bagels they ate -- relying only on gentle reminders and homemade, plywood money boxes to collect the cash. Perhaps surprisingly, his payment rates were generally more than 80% -- and Feldman kept detailed records over about a decade and for over a million bagels served. Pleasant weather correlated with higher payment rates (and less bagel theft), but perhaps this economic experiment shouldn't be generalized to white collar crime or other businesses. [url]

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