Stopped by a new self-checkout warehouse store in Columbus and saw something weird

The whole place was run by these little robot carts and a single person watching screens. I counted maybe three human workers in a space the size of a football field. The robots were moving pallets and scanning items, and the person at the front just waved people through. It felt like a ghost town with stuff for sale. Has anyone else seen a store run almost entirely by machines like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

moore.beth16d ago

Oh man, that sounds exactly like the place I walked into over in Cincinnati last month. It was so quiet it was creepy, just the hum of machines. My best tip is to grab one of the workers you do see and ask them to point you to the help desk area before you start shopping. Because if a price is wrong or something won't scan, you'll be stuck looking for the one person who can fix it. It saves a huge headache.

ray_williams16d ago

Used to just wander around hoping for the best. Now I always find an employee first, totally saves the trip.

logan52516d ago

Wasn't the whole point of self-checkout supposed to be more speed with a few humans still around to help? This sounds like the next step where they just got rid of the humans. I used to think more automation was fine, but after reading about @moore.beth's experience, it seems like a real pain if something goes wrong. A store that empty of people would make me not want to go back, even if it's cheaper. It just feels broken, like they forgot the part where you sometimes need a person.