Bay Area innovator stops shoplifting, gives shoppers power to open padlocked shelves::New technology coming to stores could stop theft and ease customer access.
This whole article is a fucking advert for glorified vending machines.
Written by AI
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TL;DR - Instead of locking shit up in a cabinet you need an employee to open, dude wants to use vending machines (that he sells) so you can just buy the stuff without waiting around.
Honestly not a bad idea. Trying to find the only employee with the key to a locked cabinet is fucking annoying and wastes so much time. They often have a call button, but in my experience nobody fucking comes anyway
Useful unless you just want to look at the item more closely (read the back of the box or whatever before you purchase.
honestly not the worst idea for some smaller high priced items
“Ashforth showed us how it works: you pay in advance online or at an in-store kiosk.” Aaannndddd you’ve just re-invented going to someone with a key to go unlock something. It does look to be a bit better, but considering half of the point they where making was allowing ease of ‘obtainablity’ to customers, you still need to go to someone to ask them for the item.
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The problem Is real but this solution seems very bs
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I would rate it as a concern. Probably not “HUGE” concern but it is impacting thing.
I work loss prevention, so I have a slight bias. But I also see how often and to the volume that it is. There are individuals I have helped with that are linked to 6 digit worth of stuff (and then of course money theft but that’s a different ball game).
Yes if a company has 30,000,000 in sales, theft seems less a problem until it gets multipld out hundreds of times a 1,500,000 of saleable items being stolen can and is something that happens with the current security stuff. And while that is 1/20 the of the sales that 30 mill is before paying for the product, utilities and salary.
Profit is still there but it is getting harder to hold that profit and new ways to loose/new scams pop up all the time
The problem is barely real.
Great, so now they can fire all their on-site staff and force their customers to use some shitty, proprietary app/software that 100% grabs as much of their personal data as possible. All while the only people who save money in the long run is the corporation that puts these in, and the company selling it to them.
I’m sure the corpos that install these will lower their prices once they recoup the losses they have from the stealing right?..right?..
The cyberpunk corpo dystopia is upon us already.
Am I the only one that read the title as the innovator was actually a shoplifter but they made a life decision to stop and instead invent an anti-theft device?
Was he doing research for his invention, is this just a ploy to help him steal more down the track from his own devices, was he visited by 3 ghosts during the night just before Christmas and have a change of heart?
I don’t get what this solves…
It solves a stagnant demand for vending machines and gives a made up growth path for him to take to their investors.
This sounds terrible. If I can’t pick up a product and look at the packaging for specs or ingredients before deciding which item to pick, why wouldn’t I buy online instead? This is a great way for retail to finally cut one of their last benefits.
Man, capitalists will do literally anything to not pay people more money. You know people steal cause shit is expensive and they don’t have a lot of disposable income to waste on stuff right? Why inconvenience everyone. Pay people more and hire more workers.
Also cause the propaganda to get people to “want” stuff is so effective they start stealing just to have it.
If you think the people filling trash bags with laundry detergent is because they just can’t afford it because it’s too expensive, you’re not living in reality
Why else? They don’t think it’s “worth it” because they only have so much money to go around and they don’t want to waste it on bullshit like needlessly expensive laundry detergent compared to their salary.
When a bottle of detergent is 2/3 your hourly wage why the hell wouldn’t you want to steal some if you could?
When a bottle of detergent is 2/3 your hourly wage why the hell wouldn’t you want to steal some if you could?
Lol you think these people have jobs…