Regardless whether it is Amazon or a rival who gains firstmover advantage, the trends are clear. The future of retail, as with logistics and warehousing, is automated. Yes, some jobs will remain, but when you consider that salesperson and cashier are the two leading jobs in the United States – and indeed most other countries – the prospect is a frightening one. Some might say customers want an emotional connection when they shop, and in certain contexts that may well be true, but most of the time the primary consideration will be the best product at the most afordable price. That will mean cutting labour costs wherever possible.
Rather than distant challenges, the retail industry now anticipates major layofs in the area. Before Amazon Go was even announced, the British Retail Consortium predicted almost a third of the country’s 3 million retail jobs would disappear by 2025, resulting in 900,000 lost jobs as companies turn to technology to replace workers.
As with self-driving cars and Atlas, all of this is possible because of extreme supply in information – from things like image and range sensors, to stereo cameras, deep learning algorithms, and the ubiquity of smartphones and online accounts. The same holds true elsewhere in the supply chain, from the warehousing robots using sensors and barcodes controlled by a central server, to the autonomous vehicles set to oversee distribution and delivery – whether by vehicle or drone.
But even among those who accept that common jobs like warehousing, retail, logistics and taxi-driving could be eliminated by advancing technology, there remains an insistence that jobs in ‘high value ’ services will somehow remain immune. Here too, however, the evidence increasingly indicates the truth is rather diferent.
Full Automation
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