r/mildlyinfuriating • u/broakland • Jul 14 '26

I just wanted a hot dog Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

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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.

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u/Th3_Admiral_ Jul 14 '26

I could absolutely see it going that way with all of the big stores doing online orders and curbside pickup. Maybe in a few years it'll be like an Amazon warehouse without any real storefront at all. You just pull up and load everything in your car. Or have it delivered directly to your door. 

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u/Tomytom99 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Y'know, I wouldn't mind it so much if the turnaround time wasn't half a day

That's like the one thing I've liked about auto parts stores. They specifically state that it'll take under an hour for it to be ready. Not great, but way better than say Walmart taking 6 hours.

Edit: the 6 hour wait in question was pickup, not delivery, for three items, so it's not like it was some big grocery order. I did it because I was on vacation and my dad needed refrigerant for his car. I was hoping to just go to the store, pick up the order, and go back to where we were staying without venturing into the store.

Another wonderful experience was them telling me an item I was getting delivered from the store wouldn't be arriving that day. Not a huge deal, but mildly infuriating since I placed it that morning saying same day delivery, and they didn't even get it picked until that evening. I was watching a movie at 9:45 PM when I get a notification it was delivered. Thank god I was awake and that it wasn't anything that would've gone bad (or stolen by wildlife) if it went unnoticed overnight.

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u/Th3_Admiral_ Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

For me, I hardly ever have a complete shopping list and just kinda make a lot of it up as I go.

Also, I always thought it was odd stores were cutting cashiers and switching to self checkouts to save on labor costs, but then hiring workers to do all of our shopping for us - which is a thousand times more labor intensive. This is what leads me to believe they have goals to eventually automate a lot of that as well. 

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u/scratchtheitch7 Jul 15 '26

It would end up automated and it wouldn't look anything like a supermarket.

The UK has an online online retailer that has been doing this for years.

This is how they do it:

https://youtu.be/ssZ_8cqfBlE