Wacky Variations
Wacky Variations
Leonard F. Clerc put his entire “Shopneze” store on a conveyor belt. Customers shopped from upholstered easy chairs. If they stood lon enough, pedestrians on the sidewalk in front of the store could view the entire contents of the store as the conveyor belt rotated through the shop window.
even wacky ideas had historical precedent
We are not used to sitting down when we shop, but sitting was a traditional part of the counter-service shopping experience.
monorails
Miller Reese Hutchison, an inventor who worked for Thomas Edison, patented a design for a self-service store that used baskets connected to a monorail that established a prescribed pathway through the store.
extreme compartmentalization
Alva Wright Boswell Johnson was so concerned about keeping customers under surveillance that his store was designed as a collection of tiny display compartments linked by turnstiles. Each compartment was staffed by a clerk. In this case, surveillance outweighed the goal of reducing labor costs.
