Walmart Is Testing A Scan-And-Go iPhone App That Could One Day Replace Cashiers

Business Insider ^ | 09/01/2012 | Alyson Shontell

[KevinDavis]

In Rogers Arkansas, Walmart recently asked employees and their friends with iPhones to test out a new self scan-and-go app. It's one of a few mobile initiatives Walmart is working on that could one day replace or aid its many cashiers.

[Drew68]

I can never find an open register at my Wally World so they may already have.

Same here. Typically they'll have two regular registers and a single speed line open. Often there's at least a half dozen full shopping carts in front of me when I get in line. Twenty minute waits to check out are the norm. One night it was so bad that shoppers were abandoning full carts and walking out. It took an hour to get through the single open line that was backed up halfway across the store. I told my wife, "no more!" I'll pay a little more to shop at a business that has hired cashiers.

The Super Target in my old neighborhood always had open cashiers waiting at the front of the lines to flag over the next person to approach the checkout lanes. I'd give anything for a Super Target in my new neighborhood.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

You would prefer one of these stores?

[Dysart]

In my college business 101 class our educator, if you will, assured us by 2010 we’d be receiving our groceries via a network of pneumatic underground tunes. True story.

[Dysart]

Well, too many people are incapable of following the one que, many servers model borne of ignorance or social retardation. It’s unworkable when a majority don’t follow the unwritten, common sense rules. Now they’re able to pull it off in the UK. I’ve had to “help” a few people understand the process when I suspected they were selfishly not taking their proper turn. Still others are just stupid.

[Moltke]

Heh. Actually what I was thinking is that someone would crack that app as soon as it hits the market - allowing manipulation of the self-checkout prices (”shopping below retail”).

There is no such thing as digital security.

[Dysart]

Oops. tunes=tubes

Pneumatic Tunes sounds like a great name for a techno band.

[bgill]

How long does it take when something doesn’t scan to get someone?

[Balding_Eagle]

Might as well be the "grower" at that point.

That's going to be stunning news to a lot of my relatives and freinds who, in fact, do grow the food.

[adorno]

That's going to be stunning news to a lot of my relatives and freinds who, in fact, do grow the food.

There are large people who do grow their own food, and thus, they're not counted as providers for what stores such as Wal-mart stock and sell.

Then, there are the large farms, in the U.S. and abroad, who depend upon stores such as Walmart for a huge part of their growing and delivery. Those large growers do depend upon Walmart and supermarkets and grocery chains, and without those big stores that make the big demands, those farmers/growers, wouldn't even exist.

Recently, I read that, more bananas are sold in Walmarts than in any other grocery store in the U.S., perhaps the world. That makes Walmart a huge driver for demand, because, if they didn't make the bananas available in their stores, consumption of bananas would likely be a lot less. Without the demand for a product, the product won't be produced or grown, so, like I said before, might as well be the "grower" or the manufacturer.

[adorno]

Actually what I was thinking is that someone would crack that app as soon as it hits the market

I knew what you meant, but, I decided to take off on a different idea that your post, inadvertently, suggested. But, yeah, you are also right that, technology-wise, someone will come up with a hack to that app.

[PreciousLiberty]

“What’s particularly galling is that now that they’ve introduced self-scan checkout systems, they include them in the equations as well. For some mysterious reason one or more are always down for “maintenance” or some other excuse so that customers don’t get an unexpected taste of swift service to skew the expectation level which must be carefully managed to keep checkout frustration at the just-below-boiling-point level. “

Piggly Wiggly in the Charleston SC area now has a service where you can upload your grocery list online, then drive to the store and pick it up after an employee fills the order.

This is the kind of free market competition that made America great in the first place.

Granted, you can’t buy an AR-15 at Piggly Wiggly. ;-)

(On the other hand, you can’t buy an AR-15 at Wal-Mart using self-scan either. lol)

[Salamander]

We have a regular Target here and a Super Target in fairly nearby Martinsburg WV.

I stopped buying groceries at Walmart long ago.

The shelves are dirty.

The local supermarket chain got wise and undersells WM all the time now anyway and they have lots of self-checkouts and the place is immaculately clean.

[and I get money off gas points, too]

There’s always somebody around to help you find things and they’re nice and not snotty like some of the WM checkers can be.

The store we shop at most often is a mom & pop supermarket gone ‘big time’ [sorta...LOL] and because the pharmacy is part of the grocery store, we get huge gas points for using it.

Himself filled the tank last week with points built up to $1.70 off of each gallon.

We get that bonus every month, at least.

They’ll also bend over backwards to special order whatever you want, the store is neat as a pin and the people know us by name.

[Salamander]

I’d never use my phone to checkout.

I don’t really care for any of the “apps” that my favorite stores have put out, Michaels Arts & Crafts being a notable one.

Instead of the usual Sunday paper flyer and coupons, now they’re totally online.

What of the folks who have no internet?

It’s not ubiquitous here in the boonies like it is other places.

I tried just the other night to use my ‘phone coupons’ and it was a time consuming nightmare.

So, I just print them off them website instead.

90% of the apps on my iPhone are weird things like EMF detectors and altimeters, anyway.

;D

[xrmusn]

and make direct purchases from manufacturers and growers of the food. The “retail” jobs will just get shifted to the manufacturing end, and to the farms.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
That is the part that obozo left out of his ‘you didn’t build it scenario’. The dairy farmer found he could produce more milk if he started to deliver to the homes. Then to offset the costs he started making and delivering cheese, ice cream and other dairy products.
The farmer then told the government that in order to keep delivering his supplies he needed paved roads. The govt used OUR taxes to build the roads, then for more production they found it was easier to deliver the product to a central location, in the town, that allowed the consumer to purchase it there and, to make it profitable, offer other goods and services etc etc etc...

You can imagine that the more the ‘personality’ gets taken out of his ‘dream’, that Sam Walton is doing flips in his grave, and can imagine that when ‘the board’ started charging for cashing GOVT checks and threw out lay away plans, ‘they’ knew the end was not far away.

[BfloGuy]

How long does it take when something doesn’t scan to get someone?

It's been my experience that there is always an attendant monitoring the terminals at a central console. And my comment was tongue-in-cheek -- if you don't like them, then I certainly wouldn't blame you for going elsewhere. For many of us, though, it's a sensible alternative.