There seems to be a surfeit of tech plays trying to eliminate interaction between retail shoppers and staff. Why? I guess because technology can make this happen, and there’s is money to be made if they can sell it.
Created on 2020-04-14 21:25
Published on 2020-04-14 21:44
There seems to be a surfeit of tech plays trying to eliminate interaction between retail shoppers and staff. Why? I guess because technology can make this happen, and there’s is money to be made if they can sell it.
The counterpoint is that people have recently experienced first hand just how important it is to them to get out of their homes and have personal interaction while shopping. Reduced staff means eliminating meaningful relationships with customers. Controlled entry implies the company distrusts its customers. Not having cashiers means not being able to engage with customers on promotions, fundraisers, and up-selling new product introductions.
There are many retailers who aim to eliminate these interactions (especially online), but these relationships are the foundation of many independent retailers’ business models. Similarly, “personalized nutrition” to many tech companies means using machine learning and AI to direct people on how to eat based on black box nutrition tables and algorithms using age, gender, health history or ethnicity. Conversely, a better model for personalized nutrition is actually “personalized nutrition education” which requires humans interacting with humans over the long haul.
I understand this sounds like natural product retailers are sticks in the mud. But we really don’t understand why all these tech plays are trying to dis-intermediate us sellers from our customers, while most successful food retailers are hellbent on becoming stronger intermediarieswho can provide exceptional and extraordinary customer service, friendship, education, encouragement and a sense of welcoming community. We know people crave this. If we cannot provide it, or technology eliminates it, do people purchase an app that simulates it?
This does not mean there is not a place for people-free shopping. But at some point, just give us all feeding tubes and an AI chat bot and we’ll stay in bed permanently.