AI is coming for your job

[santafe2]

This morning, AMZN is opening it's first full sized GO grocery store. The store will stock 5,000 items and only require a few "associates" to stock shelves and someone to check IDs in the alcohol section.

https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazon...ss-technology/

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: AI is coming for your job

Thanks santafe2, I find this stuff fascinating.

Amazon seems to overlook the trade knowledge of greengrocers, fish mongers, and meat buyers.
Somewhere along the line the good peaches need to be selected from among the average peaches, and a greengrocer is the person who does that.
When real human customers find the produce and meat are poor quality, they shop elsewhere.

The major grocery chains like Kroger and Publix seem to have the advantage. They know the grocery business more deeply than anyone else, while having big piles of cash to buy and install any technology that Amazon stands up.
But betting against Amazon has been a poor strategy. Maybe Bezos really will own the world - all the clothing, all the dry goods, all the hardware, all the food.
One store to rule them all - Amazon.

[seobook]

Re: AI is coming for your job

There will always be a need for some employees. Stopping fraud & theft, discarding spoiled goods, collecting coupons, fixing the broken loop on self-checkout stations, correcting errors with wrong item or wrong UPC code that is broken, billing disputes, etc.

Warren Buffett bought a bunch of Kroger late last year. About 19 million shares at something like $26 per, so like a half-billion dollars for a company that is worth about $20, giving him about a 2.5% stake.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/...-stake-in.aspx
Kroger is the biggest pure-play grocery store. Their price to sales is crazy low because their margins are low. But the market is becoming more consolidated through all the PE roll up plays along with the strength of Walmart. Perhaps he saw more negotiating power by Kroger against Kraft Heinz and/or rising in-store shelf space rates and/or lost sales shifting across to higher margin store brand goods.

[Mega]

Re: AI is coming for your job

Self driving 10-20 years off at lest, but lane assit & auto braking here now & very welcome

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: AI is coming for your job

There will always be a need for some employees. Stopping fraud & theft, discarding spoiled goods, collecting coupons, fixing the broken loop on self-checkout stations, correcting errors with wrong item or wrong UPC code that is broken, billing disputes, etc.

Warren Buffett bought a bunch of Kroger late last year. About 19 million shares at something like $26 per, so like a half-billion dollars for a company that is worth about $20, giving him about a 2.5% stake.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/...-stake-in.aspx
Kroger is the biggest pure-play grocery store. Their price to sales is crazy low because their margins are low. But the market is becoming more consolidated through all the PE roll up plays along with the strength of Walmart. Perhaps he saw more negotiating power by Kroger against Kraft Heinz and/or rising in-store shelf space rates and/or lost sales shifting across to higher margin store brand goods.

Just from my own observation the grocery business seem to be dividing like so many things into serving the haves and the have nots.
The few times I've been in a Walmart grocery store they seem dirty and disheveled with large packets of low quality meats and produce.

My local Kroger store is clean and organized, well staffed with higher quality products. I can order on line today, and tomorrow they will load it into my car during the 30 minute window I choose.
I've never investigated the price difference but I guess we spend an extra $150 a month or so to shop at the nice store with the nice food and the good service.
When I was younger and poorer I would have shopped for price alone and gotten by OK.

[seobook]

Re: AI is coming for your job

Just from my own observation the grocery business seem to be dividing like so many things into serving the haves and the have nots.
The few times I've been in a Walmart grocery store they seem dirty and disheveled with large packets of low quality meats and produce.

My local Kroger store is clean and organized, well staffed with higher quality products. I can order on line today, and tomorrow they will load it into my car during the 30 minute window I choose.
I've never investigated the price difference but I guess we spend an extra $150 a month or so to shop at the nice store with the nice food and the good service.
When I was younger and poorer I would have shopped for price alone and gotten by OK.

Walmart has the resources to do groceries right, but it may be less of a priority for them given their trying to chase Amazon in ecommerce, them having a much more diversified revenue stream than Kroger, and a huge portion of Walmart's food sales is processed frankenfoods to the EBT audience (a welfare program generating illness, requiring more welfare expenses on healthcare after the diabetes sets in).

If Kroger punts on groceries they got nothing to fall back on.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: AI is coming for your job

Having spent time at Amazon in the 90’s, my guess is Amazon chooses to dominate the entire value chain for home grocery delivery as well as the middle of the value chain for in-store convenience and large format grocery shopping.

I think Kroger’s is ultimately doomed. Best price and/or best real world experience wins...Kroger’s tries to be both and is neither.

Costco absolutely destroys them on price.

Wegmans absolutely destroys them on in-store experience.

The future is people ordering from Amazon/Costco while they hang out in Wegmans.

if you haven’t been to a Wegmans, find one and visit.

It’s the new American town square of essential retail.

[santafe2]

Re: AI is coming for your job

I think Kroger’s is ultimately doomed. Best price and/or best real world experience wins...Kroger’s tries to be both and is neither.

Costco absolutely destroys them on price.

Agree with that. A previous poster had defended Kroger, (Smith's here in town), it's awful. They have no idea who their customer is. Looks like a sub-standard Walmart with a goofy Whole Foods want-a-be section. We're typical Trader Joe's shoppers, (RIP TJ), with some local food/farmer's market. Over the last year or so we've found Walmart to have some of the best produce in town. It appears that when Amazon bought Whole Foods, Walmart responded. While we're on the subject of markets, since no one has mentioned Albertsons I'll pronounce the new, hip, organic Albertsons DOA.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: AI is coming for your job

Agree with that. A previous poster had defended Kroger, (Smith's here in town), it's awful. They have no idea who their customer is. Looks like a sub-standard Walmart with a goofy Whole Foods want-a-be section. We're typical Trader Joe's shoppers, (RIP TJ), with some local food/farmer's market. Over the last year or so we've found Walmart to have some of the best produce in town. It appears that when Amazon bought Whole Foods, Walmart responded. While we're on the subject of markets, since no one has mentioned Albertsons I'll pronounce the new, hip, organic Albertsons DOA.

I worked at a small regional grocery chain thru High School.

Great biz, great early part-time work opportunity, but “Borg’d” decades ago by large regionals, then nationals.

I reckon we see 3 majors:

Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club
Costco
Amazon/Whole Foods

The rest starve and die on scraps in ignored corners of the country.

The exceptions are places like Wegmans, as long as Wegmans can build a moat around their retail town square concept with the rising death of malls.

People want cheap/value(otherwise we’d be spending American rather than China).

But people also want to gather.

Malls are dying rapidly and town squares are a distant memory for most.

We are creatures of the herd.

Ever been to a Wegmans?

They are like Walmart of the 1970’s/80’s, a fast rising regional ready to break national.

But instead of value focused, they are community and experience focused.

No one wants to hang out at a WalMart, most linger and even meet at Wegmans.

We clearly pay for value.

I reckon we are beginning to pay more for engagement....humans aren’t robots.

Totally agree, Albertsons will get “Borg’d”.

Same with Kroger, Food Lion, Giant, Meijer, etc.

[LazyBoy]

Re: AI is coming for your job

Wegmans absolutely destroys them on in-store experience.

The future is people ordering from Amazon/Costco while they hang out in Wegmans.

if you haven’t been to a Wegmans, find one and visit.

It’s the new American town square of essential retail.

I loathe the Wegmans in-store experience, albeit for reasons that investors might like.

Ours is an absolute mad house. Too many people and something about the way they design aisles and stack stuff center-aisle causes continual (cart) traffic jams. The only hanging out I saw were people who were trapped. I go mental trying to get through and out. I will not go back.

I don't want to hang out in the grocery.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: AI is coming for your job

I loathe the Wegmans in-store experience, albeit for reasons that investors might like.

Ours is an absolute mad house. Too many people and something about the way they design aisles and stack stuff center-aisle causes continual (cart) traffic jams. The only hanging out I saw were people who were trapped. I go mental trying to get through and out. I will not go back.

I don't want to hang out in the grocery.

I’d definitely agree with one of the Wegmans(Cherry Hill, NJ) I visit.

On a summer holiday weekend on the way to the Shore last year it was like Lagos, Nigeria level gridlock. Horrible.

The other two are consistently awesome(new, larger format) with upper levels just for socialising.

Wegmans seem to be nudging behaviour in the direction of daily visits, the opposite of Costco’s massive monthly shopping trip.

In my opinion, both work.

And there will likely be massive customer overlap.

The US has seen a tectonic shift(relative, 4x) away from multi generation families under one roof and towards more single human households.

The vast majority of them need social interaction, beyond pets, that they don’t have at home.

It is a very recent phenomenon with humans in the west.

Government doesn’t provide town squares anymore, so commerce will.

——-

I forgot to add survivors:

Aldi(small format Costco value, 100 items, Amazon will be targeting Aldi, but killing all the rest first)
Trader Joe’s(experience of discovery, value, and very well regarded by employees akin to Wegmans)