It's the same logic of Amazon showing you similar items to you items you already purchased. Atleast pizza rolls can be repeatedly purchased, unlike Amazon which advertises hot tubs after you bought a hot tub.
It’s the same logic where every single online space (Amazon, Instagram, Facebook, Google) kept showing me latest and best toilets for 3 months straight after I bought a new toilet on my credit card, as if I was some toilet connoisseur.
Amazon shows you previously purchased products in case you're considering a return. They want you to buy your next choice from them too. It's nuts to imagine that Amazon hasn't done the math here.
Pizza rolls, on the other hand, might not be the thing you were planning to buy when you paused in front of the display case, or even just walked by. The intent is to drive impulse purchases. Plus there's ad revenue there obviously.
I bought a hub nut for a washing machine from Amazon once (don't judge, it was an emergency situation and next-day shipping factored heavily into the choice). Years later, they are still suggesting repair components for appliance models I do not even own.
Maybe it thinks I'm an appliance repair shop or something. Heck, maybe I should lean into it and make it a side hustle.
Most people don't buy hub nuts. Those that do, often also buy wash cycle timer assemblies.
But yeah, I don't think an Amazon ad will be the driver for that kind of purchase. Though I suppose it serves as a reminder that you could start your next parts search at Amazon instead of geapplianceparts dot com.
> It's nuts to imagine that Amazon hasn't done the math here.
Amazon has definitely done the math and determined that the brands that buy advertising on their platform have really dumb ideas about how much they should bid for the advertising slots.
Actually, that’s pretty uncharitable. I doubt that Amazon gives the brands enough information to know whether the eyeballs they are bidding for are about to purchase an item in category X or just recently purchased an item in category X.
They should have done the math just how often you buy a vacuum or a fridge though, because I observed the inverse effect. Buy vacuum -> 6 months of suggestions for vacuums and then nothing, not the other way round.
YT does this too; how often do I need to learn how to replace the belt in a 27 year old Kenmore dryer? Analytics probably loves how closely aligned a viewed video is with recommendations, but it's useless.
I think its more like how if someone searches the name of your business on google and you have to pay for advertising on your own name to prevent a competitor from being placed above your search results.
If someone searches for "al's roof repair" the top results will be sponsored links to other roofing companies who paid for ads before "al's roof repair".
It's amazing to me how someone could find themselves in a powerful enough position to make this decision yet somehow be so stupid that they decide to actually go ahead with it.
Meritocracy is a lie. Literally any normal human could look at this idea and go "well that's just dumb, wasteful, over-engineered, and weird".
I totally agree with this being an obviously bad idea, but then again I thought Twitter was an obviously bad idea because we had SMS, and Instagram would be an obvious bad idea because who would take pictures of themselves all day long.
There's lots of stuff we'd say that about though, especially with advertising. I can totally see why 'point of purchase' advertising would be valuable for brands and retailers, but not if it doesn't add any value or convenience, like this.
I bet the data is like post purchase upsell in e-commerce, which converts pretty high.
If you want to make yourself depressed then just remember, everyone involved in the decision to do this probably makes significantly more money than you and will continue to do so despite wasting $200M on a idea that it would be charitable to simply describe as stupid.
Or to put a more positive spin on it: Next time you screw up at work, just remember it’s not so bad - you could’ve done something much, much more stupid.
I understand what you’re getting at. Walgreens is a very old fashioned and frankly out of date brand in my view. This certainly changes something about that view. It’s just that on the list of things that the company could have done to modernize their store and image, this has to be near the very bottom of ideas that I would think to ever implement.
Honestly, those who succeed/survive in brick and mortar I suspect are going to become more like an old fashioned general store in that it has no merchandise out in the public area. It would operate a “pick up in store” program like a tiny Amazon FC. Impulse items and specials probably advertised on a few big screens in a waiting lobby, with a few delivery doors that open up and dispense your order that’s been picked by whatever the most efficient method is (probably eventually heavily augmented with robotics). You can talk to a chatbot kiosk if you want to browse something outside of the app method.
The reason is that people seem to be indicating that they’d rather buy online, and also if crime doesn’t go down a lot, there isn’t much margin to keep supporting the rampant theft. If I were in charge of a flailing drugstore chain (and all of them are other than their PBM arms) I’d be experimenting with that model.
> HN folks would easy criticize Walgreens for not innovating.
1. It's possible for one forum to have two distinct groups with different and contradictory opinions, where neither represents the whole.
2. While some may have wanted Walgreens to "innovate", it's implicit that they wanted good/smart changes and probably for customers, rather than a weirdly destroying functionality in order to serve in-store ads on extremely questionable hardware.
So happy this is failing, it looked like an absolute nightmare from the videos I saw. Endless ads, waste of energy, waste of time and effort, just a disaster.
Screens had white background, and actual shelves were black with little light. They also appeared 'full' even when the shelves behind them were bare. Open the door and you're hit with a huge wave of shock and disappointment, much worse than if you just saw the empty, dark shelf without the screen because you're hopes were never raised.
Those screens look like the stupidest thing ever, and just another example of tech industry brain-rot. We already have excellent tech to see what's inside a cooler: it's called a window. Why replace a simple, functional solution like that with some monstrosity that needs power, data feeds, and development/tech support?
this is such a small part of that though: posting the current price. Still needs to tie into the entire POS system. It's also for products that don't really show very elastic pricing, so not sure how much surplus there is here.
Another business that is great for the vendor, potentially great for the business, and completely fails to consider the customer at all. Really makes you wonder how many venture capitalists are just degenerate gambling addicts with access to a lot of financing.
> As part of a 10-year contract with Walgreens for a split of the ad revenue, Cooler Screens had installed 10,000 smart doors at hundreds of US locations like this one. It planned to install 35,000 more
Why not do a smaller test run to gauge response?
I question the ability for anyone who oked this to make basic decisions…
The article says "He and Wasson say that based on their PowerPoint presentation, the company approved a six-store pilot program for 2018. Pilot data showed the screens resulting in more than a 5% incremental sales jump, and Walgreens committed to installing them in an additional 50 stores the next year as part of a decade-long deal. In late 2020, after Walgreens agreed to add another 2,450"
The Cooler Screens CEO sounds like a “fake it till you make it at all costs” kind of guy just based on the allegations of fraud at his tea company and his conspiracy allegations at the Four Seasons interview. I’d be very wary of any data provided by his company indicating increased sales, it’s very easy to manipulate the excel data if nobody is verifying how the data was collected in the first place.
But shouldn’t increased sales numbers be something Walgreens measures? On the other hand, this was probably some mid-level exec’s chance at growing in the company, so maybe there was some internal incentive to massage the numbers (e.g. maybe 5% is much smaller than the per-store standard deviation).
"[Cooler Screens CEO] Avakian [...] says [Walgreens] turned off its access to point-of-sale data for products outside the cold section, which brands like Revlon needed to confirm lipstick ads on fridges really were enticing shoppers to walk over to the beauty aisle."
In corporate speak, this was a major sales win for that startup, and I don’t think they would have gone this far without a lot of people at Walgreens buying into the concept.
Which makes me think there is a major disconnect between those people and Walgreens customers—I mean, it’s obvious that people who like shopping like to browse, and that they also like to have the least possible amount of stuff between them and what they are looking for.
So completely breaking that experience (and often having people open doors that had no product behind them) is probably frustrating enough for those people to shop elsewhere, or to simply avoid those aisles and shop less.
The thing that astounded me about these things was the sheer amount of heat the screen threw off, you could feel it radiating from the screens when you walked by.
I was wondering about that. How much did this send energy usage soaring not just to power the displays, but to make the fridges and freezers have to work that much harder?
> In the early years, it was downright familial: Avakian co-founded the startup with former Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson, who helped secure the deal with his old employer.
It's not about what you know but who you know. Anyone with an ounce of sense would realize this is a garbage idea. Without Wasson this startup would have gone exactly where it should have - defunct.
Hopefully these screen doors will find their way on ebay or similar and put to good use as novelty monitors. Hell, I'd love it if you could buy one as a single door fridge so the TV and beer are in the same place. Perfect for a garage or man cave setup.
Stupid things like these screens and so many items being locked up makes me think these corporate retailers aren't actually interested in having people buy stuff from them.
The fact that Cooler Screens thought sabotaging its own client would be a good business tactic is mind-blowing to me. Who in would ever solicit their business after knowing that? After this boondoggle who'd ever even try a similar product?
> Avakian recently learned that Walgreens is even experimenting with new in-store screens.
I'd love to learn how Walgreens caught the Cooler Screens executive checking out the dead displays after the sabotage.
One can dream up stuff like facial recognition and whatever, I bet it was a lot simpler. Where do the execs live and where is their nearest Walgreens, then let's check the tapes after the blackout.
Thanks. Can we also have a article about how the web was replaced by bullshit popovers and invasive javascript much to the dismay of people who use it?
I just got an idea for a great shopping experience. An app on my phone that I can add my groceries list to and it will tell me where in the shop the particular item is located and will automatically keep the tally of what I've put in my cart so far so that I know how much I'm spending and my total shopping time will be much smaller. It could also automatically connect to some cart sensor so that I don't even need to scan each item at the cashier, but I can just pay. Something like Amazon Go, but works.
I read this and thought, "Hey, cool name, I should start a consultancy called Cooler Heads!" Then such heads prevailed, and my bank balance remained the same. What did I do wrong?
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadSuch is the way for tech purchased by companies to run something important when the company lacks an internal ability to maintain it
> Hey! Hey you! Based on your attire and general heath you appear to enjoy pizza rolls. Come here.
Are there pizza rolls behind this door?
> Pizza rolls are a great nutritious snack for all ages, and...
> A fellow who loved pizza rolls
> Would eat them in massive great bowls
> His health took a dive
> Barely stayed alive
> From stuffing his face with those scrolls
They'll ping your IMSI and pull up your neighborhood from a data broker to score your estimated wealth.
Pizza rolls, on the other hand, might not be the thing you were planning to buy when you paused in front of the display case, or even just walked by. The intent is to drive impulse purchases. Plus there's ad revenue there obviously.
Maybe it thinks I'm an appliance repair shop or something. Heck, maybe I should lean into it and make it a side hustle.
Most people don't buy hub nuts. Those that do, often also buy wash cycle timer assemblies.
But yeah, I don't think an Amazon ad will be the driver for that kind of purchase. Though I suppose it serves as a reminder that you could start your next parts search at Amazon instead of geapplianceparts dot com.
The same could be said about Walgreens, and yet here we are.
Amazon has definitely done the math and determined that the brands that buy advertising on their platform have really dumb ideas about how much they should bid for the advertising slots.
Actually, that’s pretty uncharitable. I doubt that Amazon gives the brands enough information to know whether the eyeballs they are bidding for are about to purchase an item in category X or just recently purchased an item in category X.
You're waiting for an ad to play before you can see the information critical to the reason you're even at this place at all.
If someone searches for "al's roof repair" the top results will be sponsored links to other roofing companies who paid for ads before "al's roof repair".
Meritocracy is a lie. Literally any normal human could look at this idea and go "well that's just dumb, wasteful, over-engineered, and weird".
I bet the data is like post purchase upsell in e-commerce, which converts pretty high.
Ignore what those guys get paid, of course.
If they didn’t have these displays, HN folks would easy criticize Walgreens for not innovating.
What ever happened to “embracing failure”.
The reason is that people seem to be indicating that they’d rather buy online, and also if crime doesn’t go down a lot, there isn’t much margin to keep supporting the rampant theft. If I were in charge of a flailing drugstore chain (and all of them are other than their PBM arms) I’d be experimenting with that model.
1. It's possible for one forum to have two distinct groups with different and contradictory opinions, where neither represents the whole.
2. While some may have wanted Walgreens to "innovate", it's implicit that they wanted good/smart changes and probably for customers, rather than a weirdly destroying functionality in order to serve in-store ads on extremely questionable hardware.
"Let's spend a bunch of money to make our stores harder to use" is not an innovation deserving of praise.
This is just so funny to me
Arguably not even that.
But I'm pretty sure it would never have needed to get that far.
Why not do a smaller test run to gauge response?
I question the ability for anyone who oked this to make basic decisions…
Also, it's a brand new income stream. Managers love to talk about income streams at shareholder meetings.
The article also mentions that, under Wasson, Walgreens invested millions in Theranos.
Great track record there.
I dunno, just guessing.
"[Cooler Screens CEO] Avakian [...] says [Walgreens] turned off its access to point-of-sale data for products outside the cold section, which brands like Revlon needed to confirm lipstick ads on fridges really were enticing shoppers to walk over to the beauty aisle."
because it's a novelty and draws attention. soon afterwards replaced with annoyance about this total nonsense.
Which makes me think there is a major disconnect between those people and Walgreens customers—I mean, it’s obvious that people who like shopping like to browse, and that they also like to have the least possible amount of stuff between them and what they are looking for.
So completely breaking that experience (and often having people open doors that had no product behind them) is probably frustrating enough for those people to shop elsewhere, or to simply avoid those aisles and shop less.
Genius move, if you want to lose customers.
The crux of the problem right there. Always approach startups as "what problem can I solve?".
It's not about what you know but who you know. Anyone with an ounce of sense would realize this is a garbage idea. Without Wasson this startup would have gone exactly where it should have - defunct.
Hopefully these screen doors will find their way on ebay or similar and put to good use as novelty monitors. Hell, I'd love it if you could buy one as a single door fridge so the TV and beer are in the same place. Perfect for a garage or man cave setup.
> Avakian recently learned that Walgreens is even experimenting with new in-store screens.
Oh.
One can dream up stuff like facial recognition and whatever, I bet it was a lot simpler. Where do the execs live and where is their nearest Walgreens, then let's check the tapes after the blackout.
Not sure who built it. Presumably not an in-house product.
If everyone who moved it forward loses their job or investment money, that negative reinforcement is a good thing for society.