Shop Till It Drops

Ando Japando writes "There's an article on NYTimes.com about a new vending machine in the US. Unlike the typical machine, this one is 18 ft wide and takes up 200 square ft. Of course, the convenience stores are not sure if this machine is a boon or a boo, but many people like it because it doesn't take up a lot of space. It'd be really cool to see these all over the place. Others complain about the lack of human interaction and perceive it as dehumanizing. That may be true, but at least it's not a live bait vending machine."

First they came for the Indians...

[sllort]

Removing human interaction is the trend, and it's going to keep happening. Two national chains that I know of off the top of my head : Sheetz & Wawa have both removed human interaction from the ordering process for food - you interact with a touch screen, and the order is printed for the human to process. For now - phase 1 - the human is still visible, and exists.
Look at grocery checkout lines - I'm sure you've all seen the image recognition lines that photograph and weigh your items and let you check them out yourselves.

I'm pretty sure we're going to tell our kids about the days you had to talk to people to buy things at the store.

I was in Sheetz once, and a man walked in and tried to order a sandwich. He was pressing buttons for quite some time and growing visibly more distressed, until after a while he looked over the counter and said "Can't I just talk to somebody?".
It became apparent to me after some reflection that the gentleman was illiterate.

All I know is, if that thing fails to drop my diapers, tipping it is going to be a bitch.

Still doesn't solve -all- problems

[tibbetts]

After he inserted a $10 bill and punched numbers on a screen, the crowd watched a metal bin rise to collect a package of razor blades from one shelf and a can of shaving cream from another.

I'm not sure whether this would make it more or less embarassing to buy that rose and box of condoms on a Friday night...

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[DrXym]

Automats have been around for a hundred years. The fact they never caught on must demonstrate that shoppers prefer the human touch. That doesn't mean vending machines and their ilk don't have a place, but that any store that thinks it can do away with humans will soon find itself filing for bankruptcy.

Yeah well...

[VivisectRob]

I work 2 blocks down the street from the damn thing... The prices are outrageous... but... if you need diapers, condoms, or candy at 3am its a godsend. On another note, Adams Morgan consists mostly of low income housing and bars... and if some teen(s) in that housing or even the drunk fratties that frequent the area are willing to buy condoms from that thing instead of not at all, then the world is a better place because of it.

This is totally cool!

[bopbopaloobop]

And I disagree with the the editor guy who said "I'm concerned about the people this is going to put out of work," Don't look at people as something that needs to be kept occupied. Think of all the more usefull things people can be freed up for when machines handle simple repetitive taskes. After all, is it a bad thing that there are soda vending machines instead of some guy spending his day standing at a vending stand selling the sodas? Is it bad that traffic lights have taken the place of a policeman standing in the intersection directing traffic? What about the poor scribes who are out of work now that we have copying machines? These people are all freed up to do something more usefull, and hopefully more interesting. This sort of progress is good.

dehumanising?

[kevin lyda]

a vending machine is dehumanising? are they trying to imply that working in a convenience store is not dehumanising? i suggest they go try it.

Re:This is totally cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Something more useful like beg for change or dumpster dive? Would you rather work at a soda stand or sort through trash for food? Believe it or not, most people freed from the agony of their 7-11 night shift can not go out and get a job for NASA. There will always be people in the low or no skill category, either because they haven't finished training of some kind (students) or can't get it (dirt poor / illiterate / etc). These are the jobs machines like this destroy. Hopefully you don't believe all those star trek / utopian predictions where machines do all the untrained labour while people who mysteriously need no income spend their lives surfing and exploring their inner selves...

Wal-Mart Nation

[David Wong]

Going a step further, the truth is in the end we as a society get what we want. I see a parallel here to the Wal-Mart phenomenon, people screaming and crying because we lost "Main Street America" and all the quaint little shops ran by friendly old people, now run out of business by the huge, cold, evil product-dispensing Wal-Mart juggernaut.

Why did it happen? With evil corporate tricks? Smoke and mirrors? No; it was because people like it better this way. We like getting everything we need in one place, getting it quick, getting it cheap. Those little mom and pop shopkeepers screwed me over far more often than Wal-Mart ever could. You think Old Man Funkle from down the street had Wal-Mart's "return anything for any reason for a refund" policy? Hell no. He smiled at us as we came into his little shop, place smelling like cigar smoke, and he gouged the hell out of us. His selection sucked, it took forever to get checked out...

We have moved on. We need toothpaste, diapers, aspirin. We don't see getting those necessities as some wonderful opportunity to make new friends. If we could snap our fingers and make that stuff magically appear in our cabinets, we'd do it.

With the machine, we've taken the next step. There is no line (or at least less of one), there is none of that annoyance we get with humanity. When I want a conversation I'll talk to a friend. When I want a box of kleenex, I'll go to the Kleenex machine. If something has been lost, it is solely because we chose to lose it.

Re:Here's a picture of it

[moosesocks]

Yes it does, it's on the right side of the page.

Re:This may be new in the USA

[Dun Malg]

low crime rates, which allow for such machines to be operated with minimal concerns about theft.

Not true. Crime against vending machines is quite rare everywhere primarily because a vending machine can be built like a tank and locked up six ways from Sunday. Even in the worst neighborhoods you can still find vending machines. The reasons why Japan has so many vending machines are primarily a) lack of real estate necessary to accommodate a traditional walk-in store, and b) technological solutions are readily accepted (often they are the first considered) in Japan.

Combine With Pay-At-Pump Gas

[ty_kramer]

Pay-at-the-pump gas stations are clearly in the majority now. But in comparison to the convenience of the gas tank fill-up, picking up a quick hit of caffeine is much more complicated. Park the car, go in the store, select the bottle of liquid, get in line, pay a second time. Positively horse-and-buggy.

So...put one of these monster vending machines next to the pump. While gas flows into the tank my already-approved credit card lets me punch up a storm on the vending machine and have it all added to the same transaction. No fuss, no muss, they get more dollars and I get my buzz.

Can't say I mind...

[Mulletproof]

Hey, how can anyone say this is a truly bad thing? Those same people don't bitch about soda vending machine and those take the human element out of my soda transaction. Some things you just don't care about recieveing a warm smile and personalized attention over. And retail automation isn't the end of the world. It may actually become a pain in the ass when these things break and all you have is an automated line to whine to, but things will equal out as there will still be a demand for human interaction for some services. The more automation, the more people will pay for the premium of that warm smile and sypathetic ear in certain cases. I'll be personally happy when I don't have to wrestle with the language barrier because some dumbass put an employee who can't speak the language in a position where he interacts with people regularly. "I'd like fries with that." "What? No understand..." "FRIES. I WANT FRIES." "Habla no English fries. What you want?" "ARRRAAAHHHRRRG!!!" It's not rasism, just hiring the right person qualified for the job, not because you have a racial quota to fill (which is another story entirely...)

Re:dehumanising?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Right on!

Speaking from experience, the most dehumanizing part of working as a cashier is the customers. And people wonder why cashiers are often snide and defensive - it's because one in four of the customers they serve is either rude or just plain evil.

My girlfriend works as a cashier and yesterday some asshole was giving her shit because she had the audacity to want to verify his credit card signature. Personally, I have been threatened a number of times - usually the worst people were the white, middle-class types. Hell, in my city, I think more cashiers died last year than cops.

She's really nice to all the customers, but she's getting more bitter and resentful and it's starting to show.

People seem to assume that if you work in a store, you must be stupid or useless. My girlfriend has a university degree. She just wasn't lucky like the rest of us when it came time to start her career. Her supervisor has a masters in mathematics (or something, can't remember).

If you hate having to deal with a bitchy cashier, maybe you should adjust *your* attitude and/or spend a day in their shoes.

It's funny how much more respect I get now wearing a suit - I haven't changed one bit, but when I was a cashier I received all kinds of shit.