Introduction
Show Shoprite’s entrance, parcel counter and customer carrying a plastic bag/parcel. "Customers enter a Shoprite Holdings Ltd supermarket in Alexandra district of Johannesburg South Africa on Monday”.(Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The invention or innovation of shopping bags being used at the retail market has changed over the past decades.
Starting from baskets, paper bags, plastic bags and now to recyclable plastic bags, the trend seems not to deviate from the norms, the Times Live said that ”South Africans will soon be able to dispose of their plastic bags along with the rest of their waste without having to worry about any possible negative effects on the environment.”(Collins Farren, 2017). People need means of transporting or carrying, their goods from one shop to the next, in search for great deals or offers.
A parcel counter at the retail market(s) was intended to reduce theft such may come about when shoppers conceal the retail’s inventory in their bags/parcels; this is called shoplifting.
The other concept that may have brought about this, was when shopper came to the retail with their bags that had the same inventory as the retail’s; this caused confusion when a shopper did not produce evidence that they are items were theirs and not the retail’s, in such a case as this one the shopper has committed shoplifting or just replaced their items with retail inventory; (this case is the same thing as shoplifting) , the are many situations that may not have been analysed. Till now, the focus was about the retail being able to secure its inventory; it was never discussed and viewed from the shopper’s viewpoint, one shopper might suggest that it came about because of shopper convenience and the other might say something else; whatever the result, that brought the conception of the current parcel counter system, as times and situations change, an innovation for such a system will be needed.
“Every day millions of people decide to grant their smartphone a bit more control over their lives or try a new and more effective antidepressant drug. In pursuit of health, happiness, and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human.” (Yuval Noah Harari, 2015) As shoppers demand more security over their belongings in retail markets, they constantly find it inconvenience for a stranger to be a person that looks after their belongings. A demand for security; at and around the parcel counter kiosk would be an essential necessity for shoppers to have. From Harari’s quote, “if people grant more and more functionality to their smartphone device(s), why not for this device?” An innovation to the current parcel counter system would ensure that shoppers have a secure and convenient storage space. This project intent is to bring about such for shoppers and the retail market.
This keyless storage system would bring about a drastic change in the way that current parcel counter kiosk, conduct their day to day operation(s), beginning with the security vulnerabilities of the currently employed system, as forth mentioned in chapter one. It would benefit the system if the control devices portray such behaviour and functionality as of the currently employed system.
The use of control devices to bring about the desired behaviour for the keyless parcel counter system is mentioned next.