High-Tech Shopping In a Window Wonderland 61
PreacherTom writes "Elaborate holiday window fronts are nothing new to the Miracle Mile of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, home to many of the world's most famous stores. However, retailers are debuting new technology to take things to the next level this year. On Nov. 20, Ralph Lauren installed a 67-in. touch-screen display that allows passersby to purchase any item from the company's RLX line of high-performance ski-wear. They can then retrieve available items from inside the store, or have the clothes shipped from a central warehouse ... skipping the line at the register completely. Ralph Lauren is far from alone: this is just one example of how stores are targeting the tech-savvy consumer."
Forget that (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Forget that (Score:4, Funny)
You do know stuff like that is prohibited in most countries, especially in "protect-the-children-from-the-adult-body america", right?
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More self checkout lines (Score:1)
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Re:More self checkout lines (Score:4, Insightful)
While I don't doubt your premise that some people are afraid to use them, there are circumstances where people might not choose to use them as well. Sounds like risk assessment to me.
Re:More self checkout lines (Score:5, Interesting)
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That said, if a store is boycotted if they start laying people off, then people have proven to value the employees and as such, if the losses to boycott pro
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>When will people stop complaining about small shops
>closing up, people being laid off, et cetera?
>That's the idea!
True, at least in part.
Which is one of the reasons some of us think it's rather a bad idea.
I share your surprise that so many people complain about the necessary and inevitable result of a system while continuing to support it wholeheartedly at both the polls and the cash register. I just wish they'd stop the later rather than the f
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Don't buy a horse and buggy just to prevent the people who make horse and buggies keep their jobs.
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Did you even think before you said that? You would rather pay people to do work that you actually don't want done (making you wait), than to have them unemployed and looking for useful work. Clearly you're no laissez-faire capitalist, but even for a socialist there are better options:
- improved (un)employment insurance and/or welfare programs so that people can get by while looking for useful work
- Make-work projects - you overpa
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Personally, I'd rather have the store pay people to be helpful to me looking for stuff and check out myself...
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Age verification is instant and seamless, someone just presses a button or something. I race through these self-checkouts whilst all the lazy retards stand in lines!
Enjoy it while it lasts (Score:5, Insightful)
All this headache - and do they give you any kind of a discount for doing a cashier's work? No. So the store is saving the cashier salary, and not passing it onto you.
I gave up on self-checkouts long ago. Maybe in a technology generation or two they will be better (I really like the IBM commercial where the RFID scanner scans all the items instantly and presents the total - hopefully it will zap the tag too).
But for now they suck ass and are a waste of time. If you have more than two items, or have to wait even behind *ONE MORE* person than the normal checkout line, the normal checkout line will be faster.
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That's my main reason for not using them.
I don't see any great gain for me.
And in the larger economic picture, it means less people employed, which means less people with money available to spend at MY business.
It's not small business that's moving to self-serv checkouts, it's the big "the only thing that matters is max_profit" companies th
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That said...perhaps it would be good for old people to get the tech and everyone else to use cash. This being because there's nothing an old person likes to do more at a checkout than have a really good long rummage for the exact chan
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My experience is different. I can pay with a debit card in something like 5 seconds. With cash, I may be able to hand over some bills in 5 seconds, but no way is the cashier going to be able to give me the appropriate change in that time.
There's also the 'supply chain' of the cash to consider. If I have to go to an ATM first to retrieve my cash,
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In a mall near you, sometime in the near future...
You walk over to the self-checkout counter. As you pass the scanner post, the RFID scanner scans all the items instantly and presents the total. Once you pay, a set of rings shoot from the ground Stargate SG-1 style and surround you and your groceries. You hear "ZZZZT", the packaging on your groceries begins to smell f
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You're lucky. Around here it seems that most of the people using the self checkout lines are the folks who should be farthest from them.
They go to the self checkout line which is market very clearly as "20 items or less" with two or three shopping carts piled high with items. Then they sta
yikes (Score:1)
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Great! (Score:1)
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"I'm sorry sir, your shirt is not compatible with Windows Vista, and we no longer support Windows XP."
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Yeah, sure (Score:2)
Windowing System? (Score:1)
Had this in Palo Alto a year ago. (Score:2)
We had something like that here in Silicon Valley a year ago, at Alan Pinel Realtors in Palo Alto. Big touch screen inside the front window, yet able to detect touches on the outside. You could check their house inventory. This being Palo Alto, the price categories went to "$5,000,000 and up".
It wasn't obvious how the touch sending worked. Some kind of sensing bar hung above the display, inside the window. The window glass itself seemed totally standard.
Ralph Lauren (Score:2)
High gaper factor [gaperhunter.com], maybe.
Skiwear? psh (Score:1)
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Saks patenting snowflakes? (Score:1)
"The snowflakes have paid off in terms of brand identity. We want shoppers to come in and buy, of course. But we also want them to have long-term, warm memories of Saks as a place to visit and shop," Wisgerof says. "Now the snowflake has become a Saks icon. In many ways, we now 'own' the snowflake...and it appears on our holiday shopping bags around the nation."
I wonder if they're going to patent the snowflake, now it's part of their brand and all ...
It's the Magnificent Mile in Chicago (Score:2, Informative)
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Be sure to bring a large blanket. (Score:2)
Nothing like having your CC# and details presented on a 67" display.
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Are you fucking retarded? Do you really think it does this? Do you not suppose somebody might have thought of that when designing it and made a credit card info exchange perhaps a tiny bit more secure?
Christ this it Slashdot, not Retards R Me ok? Do the world a gigantic favour and eliminate yourself as expediently as possible.
fucktard.
no offense.
skipping the line at the register (Score:2)
Wow, imagine this extended to the home, allowing shoppers to buy without even leaving the house! Oh, wait...