this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025

75 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37847 readers

37 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social

Walgreens Replaced Fridge Doors With Smart Screens. It’s Now a $200 Million Fiasco. (www.bloomberg.com)

submitted 3 hours ago by spit_evil_olive_tips to c/technology

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

archive link

Where the fridge cases were previously lined with simple glass doors, there were door-size computer screens instead. These “smart doors” obscured shoppers’ view of the fridges’ actual contents, replacing them with virtual rows of the Gatorades, Bagel Bites and other goods it promised were inside. The digital displays had a distinct advantage over regular glass, at least for the retailer: ads.

...

These internet-connected fridge panels, developed by a Chicago startup called Cooler Screens Inc., frequently flickered, crashed or showed the wrong products. Every so often, they caught fire. But store managers were stuck with them. 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.

...

On Dec. 14, Avakian’s team secretly cut the data feeds to more than 100 Walgreens stores in the Chicago area. The dozen or so smart doors affected in each of these stores either glazed over with white pixels or blacked out altogether. Customers could no longer see where the Coke and Red Bull and Hot Pockets and Heineken sat, and either assumed the fridges were out of order or found themselves rummaging through one by one. Some staffers pasted pieces of paper on the opaque screens that read, for example, “assorted sports drinks & coffee.”

top 20 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] totallynotaspy@fedia.io 17 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I would definitely recommend reading the full article. There's all kinds of hilarious tidbits. Like that the Cooler Screens ceo Arsen Avakian's leadership seems to be rather fiscally disastrous wherever he goes. Or my favorite bit:

Avakian discussed the concept that would become Cooler Screens with friends in Chicago business circles, including Wasson [co-founder of Cooler Screens]. As head of Walgreens from 2009 to 2015, Wasson is most remembered for overseeing its fraught international merger with Alliance Boots, a European chain. But he also bet on technology, gussying up its pharmacies with tablets, acquiring e-tailer Drugstore.com and leading the company’s $140 million investment in a then-promising startup called Theranos. (Oops.)

Jeepers fucking creepers, you would think that Walgreens/ big corporations in general would do some kind of background investigation or get a PI to find out if they have any skeletons in their closets that would prove fiscally harmful if entered into an agreement. Their total lack of operational security and basically saying 'Yes, Daddy, please?' when presented with an opportunity from the same guy that dragged the company into the whole Theranos debacle is flabbergasting.

Wasson set up a demo meeting with billionaire Stefano Pessina, Walgreens’ largest shareholder and his successor as CEO, with whom he remained friendly after departing the pharmacy chain. “‘We’re not tech guys,’” Avakian remembers the Walgreens team saying. “‘Prove it to us.’” He and Wasson say that based on their PowerPoint presentation, the company approved a six-store pilot program for 2018.

A fucking POWERPOINT is all it took even after Theranos to convince them of this boondoggle.

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 5 points 52 minutes ago (1 children)

You weren't kidding! This is a rollercoaster ride of incredible twists and turns!

The problem, according to three former Cooler Screens executives and a former Yahoo executive, was that their clients thought of the screens as “shopper marketing,” an old-timey ad category that covered in-store promos like the balloons or cardboard displays that clerks hang over cases of beer. Spending in this area was far lower than the more lucrative digital ad rates Avakian hoped to charge. One of the former Cooler Screens execs says that Avakian wanted marketing dollars well above what the industry was willing to pay and that his lieutenants could be preposterously condescending on calls with the Yahoo sales team, which at times devolved into shouting matches. “The Yahoo people hated them!” this former exec says. “Their MO was to ride them [Yahoo] like Secretariat.” (A Cooler Screens spokesperson says that this description is inaccurate and that Avakian’s relationship with Yahoo executives remained positive.)

Condescending calls with Yahoo sales team. Fucking hilarious.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 1 points 8 minutes ago

Agreed. Avakian is fascinating because he's so entitled in the article. If someone doesn't want to buy his product he just rails against how unfair they were to him.

Bro: it's business. If your product were nearly as good as you claim it is, you wouldn't need to force people into using it.

Also, the end of the article points out that Walgreens has been terribly mismanaged and is a very low-performing company, and they're still experimenting with screens, just not with Avakian. Hilarious.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 7 points 2 hours ago

The Walgreens closest to me had those installed for maybe a month before they went back to glass doors. Fucking hated those things. Completely annoying when they're working as expected.

[–] GammaGames 6 points 3 hours ago

You love to see it

[–] HeroHelck@lemm.ee 21 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Comedy gold, except for everyone who has to try and shop at a Walgreens.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 2 points 59 minutes ago

I imagine it's less fun for employees.

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 hour ago

They just keep finding interesting ways to fail!

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

Hahaha fucking weasel dumbasses, hope your ad revenue will cover your service contracts!

[–] Godort@lemm.ee 37 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

Sometimes you can have a thing that isnt a computer. Sometimes you can just have a glass door. I promise it's okay.

[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 hours ago

1000043907

[–] Pandantic@midwest.social 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

But think of the ads we can’t play! THE ADS!

[–] DdCno1 1 points 9 minutes ago

Have they tried subscriptions? I've heard it's the next big deal after ads.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 18 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

When I walk through my house I have sweet motion activated lights and doodads that I have spent hours tweaking and I enjoy thoroughly.

In the bathroom I use a switch.

Not everything needs to be "smart"

[–] TVA@thebrainbin.org 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I have my bathroom fan turn on if the lid has been open more than 45 seconds ... some things you just don't (yet) know you need to be smart :-D

For me, all of our lights are smart (some bulbs with smart switches that talk to the smart bulbs and some just smart switches), but, everything needs to be able to function like it's dumb ... nothing needs an app to function. The wall switches will function as expected ... home assistant adds additional functionality, voice commands add extra functionality, but, it all works as you'd reasonably expect it to if you just go and hit the wall switch.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 41 minutes ago

Okay I'll admit the fan thing is clever..

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

Same, I'm running homeassistant. Things that are out of the way like PC under desk get WakeOnLan from HA, or chandeliers, and grow lights for my wife's indoor trees get smart treatment. Kitchen lights are switches, because if I'm in the kitchen I will be by the switches and opening phone to launch HA app and scroll to a smart light button would take much longer.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Good. What an awful concept. A whole bunch of extra screwing around trying to keep products aligned with what's on screen along with maintenance and running costs; just so you can piss off your customers with a worse experience and waste more of their time with advertising nobody wants.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 1 points 1 hour ago

And money! Customers pay for these atrocities.

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 hour ago

If it helps, they also lock a lot of product, requiring employees to come and help customers directly.

https://eurweb.com/2025/walgreens-theft-prevention-struggle/

It's like they made their stores as hostile as possible to shop in.