Member-only story
Why Retail Automation Drove Customers Away
Self-Checkouts have failed. Not because of theft. But for a deeper, more human reason. Micro-Social interactions. What?
On a recent Saturday afternoon I had to dash down to my nearby grocery store, a national chain operation. I was cooking for friends coming over that evening. I just needed a few items, easy enough for self-checkout, but I chose the human cashier option, even though there were a few people ahead of me. That was an unexpectedly good decision.
In front of me, the cashier was having a bit of what seemed an intense chat with the customer. When it came my turn, she asked if I took a certain street home and I said I did. She then told me to take a different route, the fella ahead of said there’d just been a car accident. This was a micro-social moment, a sharing of community information.
If I’d taken the self-checkout path, I’d have ended up sitting in traffic for ages. While sometimes self-checkouts can be convenient, they generally serve to create social disconnects and often result in social micro-aggressions, such as not scanning an item or being frustrated with the employee there to help. You’ve probably experienced this.
Today, even large retail chains such as Walmart are downsizing or removing their…
