As long as the process for getting refunds is frictionless and well-implemented (perhaps similar to Prime Now), then if you can afford holding the charge on your credit card for a few days, this doesn't really seem like a problem. The process becomes: go to the store, pick up what you want, and then at some later point take a quick look at the "receipt" for verification, quickly flagging anything that seems off.
With Prime Now, you get your groceries delivered and pay for them in advance. Once in a while, you don't get an item, get the wrong item, a rotten piece of fruit, or an expired bottle of milk. When this happens, you simply go to the app where every item is listed, and follow the quick prompts to get a refund. You can optionally give a reason for asking, but in my experience they don't actually seem to care; in fact, whenever I've left a comment that, for example, one of the ten oranges I ordered was bad, they've always refunded me for _all_ the oranges on my order. I assume this is because the number of refunds is low enough relative to the number of purchases that they can afford to just always refund, keeping the customer happy enough.
If this is how it ends up working, then I'd gladly trade standing in long lines at the store for just walking out and reviewing my purchases later. The tracking part is still a bit creepy, though.
Do you memorize all the time whether you grabbed two or three bags of chips or exactly how many cans of beer etc?
How do you prove you didn't buy something? Or will they just accept your word? If anyone can just say whatever, then people will just ask for refunds of stuff. Will they check the footage in each case? But maybe it can work in the US. It sure as hell won't work in many other countries, where people look for loopholes all the time.
> How do you prove you didn't buy something? Or will they just accept your word? I
I'd imagine it's similar to the heuristic Amazon uses today with their A-Z Customer Guarantee.
If you request a lot of refunds for a single trip, or have a history of requesting refunds, your individual risk score goes up, and the hoops you jump through to get a refund increase.
Also for retail grocery stores now, loss prevention is already an issue.
Right now, a person can take an item off the shelve and hide it, leaving only security cameras and human personnel to watch for theft.
Adding in amazon's technology would be additional layers of defense.
How does amazons tech add defense? You still need human personnel to do anything about theft. People shoplifting don't care if the door is beeping while they walk out and disappear.
Without amazon tech, you take an item off the shelf, hide it, and leave. There are cameras with loss prevention staff monitoring the feeds, and in some stores, sensors that trigger an alarm upon leaving.
With amazon tech, in addition to manually monitored cameras, you add AI monitored cameras, and sensors on shelves to detect an item has been taken.
Without Amazon's tech stores rely on staff members witnessing the item being hidden.
With Amazon's tech, the item is taken and marked for payment as soon as it's removed.
>Do you memorize all the time whether you grabbed two or three bags of chips or exactly how many cans of beer etc?
Honestly, yes. What I worry more about is how well the names of items on the receipt actually match up to the products. From the summer I worked as a grocery cashier, I can tell you that people often end up confused at items on the receipt that they actually bought.
Combine that with mistaken items on the receipt and some number of more trusting people will just assume it's just a weird labeling of something they did buy and move on.
They'll extend you a varying degree of trust based on your burgeoning Amazon social credit score (taking into account your actual credit score as well I'm sure)
With Prime Now, you get your groceries delivered and pay for them in advance. Once in a while, you don't get an item, get the wrong item, a rotten piece of fruit, or an expired bottle of milk. When this happens, you simply go to the app where every item is listed, and follow the quick prompts to get a refund. You can optionally give a reason for asking, but in my experience they don't actually seem to care; in fact, whenever I've left a comment that, for example, one of the ten oranges I ordered was bad, they've always refunded me for _all_ the oranges on my order. I assume this is because the number of refunds is low enough relative to the number of purchases that they can afford to just always refund, keeping the customer happy enough.
If this is how it ends up working, then I'd gladly trade standing in long lines at the store for just walking out and reviewing my purchases later. The tracking part is still a bit creepy, though.