Abstract

TOWARDS CONVIVIALITY OF SEAMLESSLY INTEGRATED CHANNEL AND AUTOMATION: DESIGN FOR FUTURE GROCERY SHOPPING

Yunyao Gu*

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, leveraging technologies have been put with much more emphasis by industrialized food retailers for overseeing shoppers, reducing loss and popularizing cashier-free. That means millions of American workers behind the industries and customers they serve are under direct threat due to the aggressive expansion of automation in grocery and retail stores. This essay proposes a more convivial direction of future grocery shopping, including grocery environment and customer shopping experience, based on current trends of automation in grocery retail stores, and channel implement, especially about robots, AI and a specific channel integration approach called Omni-channel. This proposal of Conviviality is established based on reallocating the service provided by associates in retail store, to better fill the gap of customer from online review, to retail visit. Besides, this essay also looks into Piggly Wiggly’s first self-service grocery model, and the seamlessly integrated channel proposal was inspired by the pleasant shopping experience it offered to its customers a decade ago. Finally, methodologies are analyzed to prove that a more seamless integration of channel and automation will be in urgent need, to achieve conviviality and balance of employee welfare, customer shopping experience, and grocery profitability.

Keywords: Automation; Channel; Grocery; Shopping Experience; Conviviality.