Retailers in Europe, like Booths supermarkets, and the United States, like Walmart, are pulling back on having self-checkout in light of complaints and shoplifting.
Having worked at a grocery store, it has to do with inventory stocking. All the trucks show up in the morning, so you need more people around to do intake and stock the shelves. Sometimes they go help in the front in the downtime. Despite what the antiwork folks say, most managers are not power mad assholes, they’re workers playing their role in the system. The owner class however…
If you’re genuinely curious, a lot of it has to do with traffic management. I will blindly assume that you live near a large city in north america.
Trucks are big and cumbersome, especially semis. They’re fine ok the highway, but on city roads around busy places like grocery stores they’re like one man traffic jams.
Your typical American grocery store moves literal tons of product every single day, very little of which is produced locally. They require constant, daily replenishing, and it has to be done without disrupting the flow of shoppers and surrounding traffic.
The solution is to start your night at a store or distribution center in a major city. Pick up your trailer of paper products or whatever, make your first stop in town, then hit the highway. Stop at towns and cities along the way, dropping off a pallet or two at each until you reach your final stop in another major city where you swap trailers and take a nap before doing it all again. Many grocery stores employ a small team of (frequently underpaid) workers to process all this at odd hours in the night.
In North America our rail and highway systems are designed specifically with freight in mind, particularly in the west. 40% of freight in the US is moved by rail vs less than 20% on average in Europe. These rail lines rarely branch out or carry passengers however. Some of this is because of greedy assholes, but a lot of it is also due to history and geography (in much of the country, the train tracks predate the cities).
American freight movement follows a production line philosophy. Trains travel in long, straight lines between freightyards, where their cargo is offloaded onto trucks. Each trailer is loaded with one genre of goods (produce, paper products, milk, etc.), then drops one stores’ worth at each stop along the way. This method has a variety of benefits and drawbacks.
I’m intrigued by this concept of loading directly from a train car to a retail store, that’s something you don’t often see over here.
Having worked at a grocery store, it has to do with inventory stocking. All the trucks show up in the morning, so you need more people around to do intake and stock the shelves. Sometimes they go help in the front in the downtime. Despite what the antiwork folks say, most managers are not power mad assholes, they’re workers playing their role in the system. The owner class however…
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If you’re genuinely curious, a lot of it has to do with traffic management. I will blindly assume that you live near a large city in north america.
Trucks are big and cumbersome, especially semis. They’re fine ok the highway, but on city roads around busy places like grocery stores they’re like one man traffic jams.
Your typical American grocery store moves literal tons of product every single day, very little of which is produced locally. They require constant, daily replenishing, and it has to be done without disrupting the flow of shoppers and surrounding traffic.
The solution is to start your night at a store or distribution center in a major city. Pick up your trailer of paper products or whatever, make your first stop in town, then hit the highway. Stop at towns and cities along the way, dropping off a pallet or two at each until you reach your final stop in another major city where you swap trailers and take a nap before doing it all again. Many grocery stores employ a small team of (frequently underpaid) workers to process all this at odd hours in the night.
Supply chain is 24/7
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In North America our rail and highway systems are designed specifically with freight in mind, particularly in the west. 40% of freight in the US is moved by rail vs less than 20% on average in Europe. These rail lines rarely branch out or carry passengers however. Some of this is because of greedy assholes, but a lot of it is also due to history and geography (in much of the country, the train tracks predate the cities).
American freight movement follows a production line philosophy. Trains travel in long, straight lines between freightyards, where their cargo is offloaded onto trucks. Each trailer is loaded with one genre of goods (produce, paper products, milk, etc.), then drops one stores’ worth at each stop along the way. This method has a variety of benefits and drawbacks.
I’m intrigued by this concept of loading directly from a train car to a retail store, that’s something you don’t often see over here.