Lee Bom, 34, is one of a growing number of unmarried people in South Korea, and aside from her colleagues at work, she can go a full day without talking to anyone.
Due to her long working hours, Lee orders all her groceries online. As she usually doesn’t get home until late at night, her items are delivered to Smile Box, an unmanned parcel pickup and return service. The box is installed at a GS25 convenience store near her house and is opened using a verification code on her smartphone.
Lee enjoys the service that allows her to avoid uncomfortable encounters with parcel delivery workers, who are usually men.
Unmanned services have expanded rapidly in South Korea in recent years, as Koreans seek for better convenience and less hassle, made available by high-technology.
Machines that have long been replacing workers at manufacturing factories, are now replacing those at banks, convenience stores, laundromats and arcades as they are able to provide automated services without human help.
Ebay Korea, the operator of the country’s leading online open markets Gmarket and Auction, has launched the Smile Box service in partnership with GS Retail at about 50 GS25 convenience stores in neighborhoods with large numbers of one-person households.
“At first, it felt uneasy to order things to a public place, not my house,” Lee said. “I find the unmanned service more comfortable now, since I can avoid uncomfortable or unpleasant moments with deliverymen at my door.”
According to a report by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, as of 2015, there were about 26,396 convenience stores operating unmanned parcel boxes across the country in partnership with logistics companies. Sales of those parcel boxes jumped 10.5 percent over the past five years.
Ebay Korea said it plans to install the parcel boxes at a maximum of 1,000 convenience stores this year, owing to positive reactions from consumers.
One of primary causes of the increasing variety of unmanned services is the rising population that chooses to live and do things alone by avoiding unnecessary interactions with others.
According to Statistics Korea’s annual census, about 5.2 million households, 27.7 percent of the total households in the country, were one-person as of 2015. Demographers forecast the percentage would surge to 34.4 percent by 2035.
“Those who have been living alone for a long time tend to find encountering strangers very bothersome and stressful,” said Kwak Keum-joo, psychology professor at Seoul National University. “Rather than with other humans, they are more comfortable with computers and machines that exactly cater to their needs.”
Another central reason for the recent unmanned phenomenon is tech advancement.
So far, technology enabling unmanned services include near field communication, known NFC, and Bluetooth low energy, or BLE.
SK Telecom has developed Smart Shopper, an unmanned purchase-payment system that is currently being tested at large retail chains and department stores.
Doing without workers is a global phenomenon. E-commerce giant Amazon has recently introduced Amazon Go, calling it the most advanced shopping technology in the world. Consumers simply need to use the Amazon Go app and go to a store, scan a QR code, take the products they want and go. With the app, Amazon says, there are no lines and no checkout. The company charges the consumers’ Amazon accounts and sends them receipts.
The checkout-free shopping uses the same technologies as self-driving cars, Amazon says: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Amazon’s Just Walk Out Technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart.
“Development of the Internet of Things, virtual reality, big data and artificial intelligence technologies in the upcoming fourth industrial revolution, will change the landscape of the retail and logistics industries fundamentally,” said Kim Suk-kyung, a researcher at Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade. “Although the Korean retail industry is a bit behind of those of other countries, we are starting to see new types of shopping and logistics services that are heading toward true personalization.”
As people get used to such advanced technologies, concerns exist that convenience from automated systems and unmanned services may kill human jobs and relations.
US mega retailer Wal-mart launched Scan-and-Go, a mobile app similar to Amazon Go, last year, cutting about 7,000 cashier jobs at the same time.
Advances in technology, such as self-service checkout stands in retail stores and increasing online sales could wipe out about 75 percent of the US’ 3.4 million cashiers, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We will be living in a totally different world where people are better at communicating with machines and robots than humans,” Kwak said. “Rapid technological advances can bring us many advantages such as accuracy, speed and efficiency, while accompanying social problems such as blocking people-to-people communication.”
By Song Su-hyun (
song@heraldcorp.com)
