The biggest barrier to seeing robots on the selling floor in the short-term will be the cost to deploy and maintain this equipment. As Giant Foods is seeing, there are benefits to being the first to roll out this type of technology. The novelty factor and PR are definitely short-term wins. Utilizing robot technology for spill detection and spotting stock-outs are good, practical uses for this technology. This is only the start. Over time, I expect these robots will be used for many other tasks including product location and even basic customer service.

6’3″ is too tall. Shoppers will not like being looked down upon.

We are at the very beginning of the curve with what robotics will be able to accomplish. We will look back at the first tasks like identifying spills and laugh. Once the out-of-stock issue is solved, including ordering, there will be many more assignments that make sense like helping shoppers find a certain item or asking the robot for suggestions on meal solutions and many more.

If retailers see the robots’ ability to do the tasks as mentioned, and more in the future, while it frees associates to work with customers, this type of interaction can transform the floor to a delightful, service-centric experience for customers. That is as long as retail doesn’t see future robotics as eliminating associates to minimize cost. That would birth lower service levels and customer satisfaction will drop dramatically.

As in the deployment of any new technology the initial barriers are always cost and functionality. If robots are going to be effective long-term they need to add some functions to justify the investment. But assuming those hurdles are cleared, I’d say the next issue centers around associates’ concerns that they are being “replaced,” rather than being given another tool to work with. So, as in so many things, education is the key.

Cost, cost, cost. Ideas don’t get to see the light of day without funding. Securing a budget does depend on how well (creative) you can craft an ROI. This takes into consideration working assumptions on how associates, shoppers, and functionality (use cases) will be adopted. So the initial wave of robots hitting the stores is more on a test basis but to read about a battalion of 500 robots takes conviction and commitment.

I view the appointment of Mr. Farhan Siddiqi as Chief Digital Officer and member of the Executive Committee at Ahold as a sign of what we should expect from the company in the future. Mr. Siddiqi is expected to drive digital transformation and innovation across Ahold Delhaize with a focus on loyalty, data analytics, and personalization.

The greatest potential is shifting of time consuming non-customer facing interactions to robots so store associates can focus on customer service.

Robots in some supermarkets are a novelty and cool nowadays, but it will be instructive to see if they will roll out to more stores and become a permanent addition to a store’s staff. I see many negatives and issues with robots. I laugh when I read that robots will at first be used to detect spills and breakages. Are so many supermarkets around the country awash with broken glass and sauces on the floor of supermarket aisles that a robot army is called for? Robots to detect out-of-stocks and mis-priced products sounds like a good idea. They will replace workers who have done this before, but, hey, these workers will be given other more important tasks in the store. So the grocer — already operating with thin margins and facing considerable retail competition — is adding perhaps considerable costs and nobody will be laid off? Huh? Then there are issues like robot maintenance, vandalism from pranksters, aisle congestion, intimidation of the elderly, etc. Technology is great when it makes sense. But I say invest… Read more »

Using the robots in the Giant stores is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do and more. First, the robot has a job, and it sounds like he/she/it is meeting expectations on that front. Second, the customers are enjoying the experience. It’s new, cool, high-tech, etc. For many, this is the first experience watching a robot in action. Third, and this is a big one, it is getting them publicity. That can be well worth the cost of putting these robots to work.

It’s new and exciting. We’re watching the future unfold before our eyes. And, five years from now, when robots are everywhere, we’ll think, “Remember that first robot we saw at the Giant store? How cool was that!”

Shoppers love having real people help them in the store. Why rush into robots? Because we can?

At this point, I think tech companies are building robots because they can (like most consumer IoT technology). And that means they don’t do much for stores.

There is potential, but I’m not hearing smart discussion about it yet.

That said, let’s not forget the Deming observation: “The greatest waste in America is failure to use the abilities of people.”

Robot discussions almost always decay into potential ways that managers can avoid their real jobs of having to manage people. I’ve written more extensively about this in a post entitled “Are Robots a Way to Avoid Critical Business Questions?“