How Robots Could Help Retailers Save Billions

I see a future where physical shops are just giant vending machines.

I’ve worked in retail, and I already feel bad for the robots. I’ve had products thrown at me, been coughed on during the pandemic, and had customers purposefully destroy merchandise right in front of my face because they didn’t get their way. I’m a human who can fight back, and some people already act like this. These poor robots are not even going to last a month before they are completely defaced, vandalized or out right stolen by shoppers. 😂

The biggest problem (of which there are many here) is that, while this will save retailers billions of dollars, it won't save the customers billions of dollars.

8:10 there's no such thing as a 'staff shortage', just a shortage of companies willing to pay living wages.

The robot also doesn't have to pay rent or feed a family.

There's never such a thing as a worker shortage. There is however, a pay shortage.

Save this video. 30 years from now, we're gonna look back at those robots and think, "Those things look like antiques!"

I’ve been working retail for the last 15 years, a lot of my coworkers for 35 years. Most of the bad spending is on excess amount of chiefs or ‘new programs’ that always end up being phased out. A lot of corporate level employees have never worked on the sales floor, or have very little experience, being hired on from another company.

Corporate terms 101 - If workers demand fair pay to just live their life with some dignity, then we will use the term 'Worker Sortage' and command our stooges (politicians & media) to use it as well.

I was part of the Nike robotics team in Amazon, third-party subcontractor I was just a worker that assembled robotics with sensors in different things to help count inventory, and yes everything that I assembled replaced somebodys job, people really need to be aware of how replaceable they are especially in big box stores like Walmart and Amazon

We have one of the robot floor cleaners where I work at a very large Supermarket chain. What a piece of junk. The floors have to be swept first otherwise it picks up all the debris and starts streaking and sometimes leaks too. No robots to sweep the floor yet. It also has to have a perfectly clear path or it freaks out or starts doing donuts. It usually just ends up shutting down. It cost over $20,000 and does a terrible job actually cleaning the floors unless it has a babysitter at all times. It’s not ready for prime time.

Working in retail, I can tell you that there are so many things that's we have to do that waste our time and dont let us do what we absolutely have to do. Unloading truck and prepping product for the floor takes way too much time. If A.I. unloaded truck and make it floor ready before we even got there in the morning, we could get it to the floor quicker so customers could have more selection and there are no empty shelves

Ever wonder why there's always retail jobs available? I've worked retail, these robots will self destruct.

If the workers are not getting paid well than retailers are going to have even more problems

On a separate note: The robot cannot see what is behind the merchandise that is in front. I also worked in retail. On shelves with low stock, I would line up the merchandise on the shelf to "hide" the empty spaces behind. Then there are some customers who move around stuff and does not put them back where they got them from. They even hide merchandise behind other items in different shelves. So, yes the robot is capable of finding products that are not where they belong and can "pick up" and move the product in the appropriate place. But it still cannot see behind other products. How are they going to solve that problem?

Soon these retailers won't be able to make money because many people won't have a job to buy things.

My grocery store already has one of these and it's creepy because they've attached big wiggly eyes to it.

These robots will help retailers save billions, so that they can pay human employees less

Simple tasks made complex due to automation. Progress... There was a time when human workers somehow kept things running fairly well. The corporations just don't want to pay a living wage to human workers

As a computer repair tech I am pretty excited for this, someone will be needed to maintain this