Why haven't essential retail chains that have remained open immediately adopted a "pick-up only" strategy?

[MasterYoshi]

People. Are. Not. Following. Social. Distancing. Guidelines.

You can't just trust the fucking public to act like responsible adults. YOU CAN'T. People are out and about right now, as I type this, to pick up a handful of non essential bullshit from the grocery store. They might be going to Walmart to pick up a movie, or a game that they could just as easily buy digitally, or they just gotta have their daily Starbucks!

People are still attending churches in mass.


We have to lock down places of gathering and enforce the shit out of those who ignore the reality we are facing! Leaving these places of business open for people to enter is putting everyone at risk, and is absolutely unfair to the workers who don't have a fucking choice but to be exposed.

 

[Jimmyfenix]

Pick up only is not the best solution for staff either since a store I work for is listed as essential and is pick up only yet every one of the 100 staff has to come in every day and work in the store

 

[SapientWolf]

Pick up only is not the best solution for staff either since a store I work for is listed as essential and is pick up only yet every one of the 100 staff has to come in every day and work in the store

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Right, pick up is far more labor intensive for the store. It's just not going to be practical at every store with the high volume of shoppers right now.

 

[MasterYoshi]

There has to be a way to make things safer. I would trust my coworkers moreso than the general public because we can set rules in place and enforce them.

 

[teruterubozu]

It starts from the top unfortunately.

 

[MrConbon210]

Isn't that what Best Buy is doing?

 

[Deleted member 13101]

Just went to best buy, they got it all worked out with the curbside, was even faster than the usual regular store pickup.

 

[BDS]

Big box chains like Walmart and Target get hundreds or thousands of customers an hour, this is completely unsustainable with the number of employees they have on shift at a time.

 

[Vish]

That won't work for a place like Lowe's or Home Depot, or Costco. They have to crowd control by limiting the number of people in the store at once.

 

[Lyrick]

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Not everyone can easily get movies and games digitally.

 

[riotous]

Small stores are doing that here in Seattle, many doing delivery now to (like owners are delivering local.)

 

[joedick]

Wouldn't that require a good website you can order from? Which I imagine most small grocers wouldn't have.

 

[Bman94]

Big box chains like Walmart and Target get hundreds or thousands of customers an hour, this is completely unsustainable with the number of employees they have on shift at a time.

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This. Asking store to rapidly change how they function in a short amount of time isn't feasible. There's always jokes about how Walmart never has enough lanes open, can you imagine how long it would take to get groceries if everything worked on a pick-up only model? It would take literal hours to receive items and car would be massively backed up let alone Walmart employees finding and servicing every vehicle and car. Even if it was online orders only, it would still be a massive undertaking. Stores would need to be trained for weeks to handle something of this magnitude.

 

[Borshay]

Office supply store I work at is still fully open, customers can come in, most stores in the company are still running regulars hours too.

 

[davepoobond]

It's a numbers game in the end. They don't expect literally everyone to follow social distancing, they expect the theoretical "everyone" to. It reduces interaction whatever %, you're not going to get it to 0

 

[Tigress]

There has to be a way to make things safer. I would trust my coworkers moreso than the general public because we can set rules in place and enforce them.

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I like my coworkers but I already have a reason not to trust them. One of the ones I like more even (like we get along well) apparently kept going to work even thoguh she was waiting on results for a COVID test... granted I work retail so most hte people I work with can't afford losing hours but still... she was willing to risk everyone else (luckily it turned out negative so there was nothing to worry about).

 

[Soundscream]

OP I know you're hearts in the right place but......nope.

There's a difference between a Best Buy or GameStop doing that and a super market. Supermarkets are not staffed to handle that kind of volume for fulfilling online orders for that many people. From experience you also have people do silly things like oder 1 deodorant stick so the number of orders would be ridiculous if nobody could shop in store. And there is also a class issue since not everyone has credit cards or internet, the poor need to eat too.

 

[MinusTydus]

Don't grocers have enough people calling multiple times a day asking

Do you have toilet paper?
When will you get toilet paper?
Why don't you have toilet paper?

Now, repeat those calls for hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, bottled water, paper towels, bleach, milk, eggs.

And you want to ADD to that by having people call in orders for curbside pickups? You do realize most grocery store websites aren't equipped to do this and couldn't possibly handle the sharp uptick if methods suddenly switch over?

"Best Buy did it, though!"

Best Buy doesn't have near the demand that a grocery store would.

 

[Spine Crawler]

Right, pick up is far more labor intensive for the store. It's just not going to be practical at every store with the high volume of shoppers right now.

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on the other hand it could help bring some jobs for people that recently lost theirs.