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1247 points mangoman | 2 comments | 05 Dec 16 14:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.457s | source
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MatekCopatek ◴[05 Dec 16 15:23 UTC] No.13105865[source]▶
When I started reading the description, I thought: "someone finally delivered on that RFID pitch of just walking out of the store". Was surprised that it's actually computer vision.
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mdorazio ◴[05 Dec 16 15:26 UTC] No.13105897[source]▶
Same. I remember predictions of RFID-based shopping becoming the norm 10 years ago, but it never happened. Does anyone know why the tech didn't pan out that way?
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_gfrc ◴[05 Dec 16 15:28 UTC] No.13105938[source]▶
RFID tags are still to expensive in the supermarket context. The margins are usually razor thin (at least in Germany) and the products are quite cheap. Even when buying RFID tags in bulk they are too expensive.
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1. kalmi10 ◴[05 Dec 16 16:49 UTC] No.13106747[source]▶
Disclaimer: I am more or less pulling this numbers out of thin air.

Assume that having a single cashier costs $15 per hour. Assume that an RFID tag costs $0.05. Assume that in average a cashier handles 1 item for only 5 seconds (including payment).

That means that a cashier can handle 720 items per hour, and that costs the supermarket $15. Having RFID tags for 720 items would cost $36. That's still a ~$20 dollar difference, which still amounts to ~$0.028 per item.

I would be willing to pay that if that means i can forgo the checkout lines.

replies(1): >>13107408 #
2. _gfrc ◴[05 Dec 16 17:46 UTC] No.13107408[source]▶
That sounds about right. Depending on the store, though, the cashier will handle a lot more articles. E.g. at Aldi, a cashier is expected to process at least 3k articles per hour.

The big problem is: Most people are not willing to pay for that :) Depending on the product, 1-2 cents might be your whole margin.