Grab-and-go shopping was unveiled in the first Amazon Go store in Seattle in January. Staffed checkouts were relegated to the retail dustbin, but somehow it seemed that there weren’t many store staff around either. In a tiny store with only a few hundred SKUs, it isn’t so hard to keep up the required merchandising standards, but how will this concept work in a bigger store?
Will the staff move from the checkouts to the aisles? How will this change the feel of the shopping experience? Most importantly, what is the benefit for the customer?
In a retail industry where (for example) the commercial department might not talk too much with the operations team, the boundaries are being stripped down. To deliver the best service to the customer, multiple stakeholders are being forced to view the business through each others’ eyes.
Twenty-seventeen was a dark year for showbiz. Revelation after revelation showed that the world’s most glamorous industry was plagued by sexism and the widespread abuse of power. By coming forward, victims and survivors of sexual abuse started a movement – one that aims to end sexual harassment, not just in Hollywood, but in every workplace. This movement was reified by Time’s Up, an organisation demanding an end to sexual assault. And now it has the support of Condé Nast and eBay.
