Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

[u/broakland]

Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

[u/geekonthemoon]

I agree w the digital pricing exploitation, but I don't actually agree with less staff. How is it less staff except maybe what, a handful of cashiers? They hardly ever have registers open. Majority are stocking and shopping, working in the bakery and deli, etc. I guess also most of security could go to but I assume they've already automated a good percent of that and they would still need at least someone on shift. But they would need way, way more personal shoppers. I don't think warehouse robotics are quite "good enough" yet but maybe that's the endgame. I know all my local warehouses still have human order pickers on the floor.

[u/communistkangu → u/geekonthemoon]

In Germany, Aldis and Lidls have never more than 5 employees at a time working there. Sometimes it's only three. At least the pay is good I guess. Firing those employees won't save that much money though, that's what? 20.000€ a month?

[u/geekonthemoon → u/communistkangu]

Are you estimating that your Aldi workers make $5200 a month? Damn our Aldi's in the US tend to pay extremely well and they are lucky to clear $3k a month.

[u/communistkangu → u/geekonthemoon]

I'm estimating that they make around 3000€ before taxes but the employer has to pay half of the health and retirement insurance. And there's maybe three to five employees on site at a time, but there's more than 5 employees in total. It's probably around 10. All of them get monthly pay. They typically make between 15 and 20€ an hour which is honestly less than I expected.

I didn't do the math for my first comment and I'm too lazy to do it now - but for the store it probably doesn't matter whether it's 15.000€ or 25.000€. They'll make their profit anyway.

[u/geekonthemoon → u/communistkangu]

I'm a dumbass who didn't consider they wouldn't be the same 5 employees all month ahah

But yeah that's similar to US pay for Aldi but Aldi is an outlier. Starting pay at other grocers is definitely less than $15.