I think the ultimate cause of this kind of inconsistency is that the panopticon-style correlation of customer data is happening offline in a business intelligence system that has a one-way, stale data feed from various ETLs, while making a return happens in an online system that doesn't get anything back from the analytics system (because the analytics data is too loosely structured and low-quality to feed it back into a line of business system).

This kind of dichotomy exists in just about any organization that gets into BI/data science/whatever you want to call it, and it can be absolutely maddening. The state of ETLs and analytics systems, for example, means that we have basically gone back to "overnight batch processing" and a lot of reporting data only becomes available the day after the transaction, since all the ETLs need to run and then whatever analytics system, data-cube assembly or etc. But since the analytics system exists, it is taken as good enough and no one wants to re-implement the functionality in an online, system-of-record fashion.

Or another way to put it: the GP says "The second you walk into the store based on your face they can pull up your entire purchase history and contact." That's being pretty generous... most of the time they don't know any of that until an hour or a day later, because it comes from multiple disparate systems (and outside vendors) and importing that data into a data warehouse (in batches) and then correlating it later is far easier to implement, and the dominant method used in this kind of analytics.

Customer support is a cost center, so it gets less funding than sales/marketing-oriented projects

(route-optimizing here likely has the intention of boosting sales, not necessarily reducing customer shopping time)

Yes. There’s a reason some of the most often needed groceries are almost always at the back of a supermarket.

Yes, because that's where the refrigerated warehouse is usually located: in the back of the store, to make it easier and cheaper to restock shelves from behind. By comparison, at least in the US, green groceries are almost never in the back of the store.

I don't understand "cost center". Everything is a cost center except the part where you physically acquire the money. Surely both marketing and customer service are invested money that hopefully increases your customer base down the line? What's the difference?

I suspect the real reason that the panopticon is kept separate from the customer is to avoid creeping people out.

For Macy's, the 15 minutes you were forced to spend inside the store is a feature, not a bug.

Is it? That's 15 minutes of a customer not spending money, and 15 minutes of a staff person dedicated to giving back money to a customer, rather than generating more revenue.

I get that its considered a feature to get them into a store, but surely you don't want to optimise for associates not selling things?

>Is it? That's 15 minutes of a customer not spending money, and 15 minutes of a staff person dedicated to giving back money to a customer, rather than generating more revenue.

That would be true if the customer service area was isolated inside an empty boring room, but at Macy's, it's out in the open on the store floor and surrounded by merchandise. Waiting in a boring line means eyes that wander to adjacent displays and stands.

Well, making returns painful leads to less returns, to a certain logic. But it surely also leads to less sales, so I'm not sure which effect is greater.

That makes sense! It also takes several minutes just to get someone's attention at the makeup counter or to find a sales person to sell me a bath towel.

WAI. They recognized you, and wanted to you spend more time in the store. /s

Why improve the service when you make purchases anyway? No unnecessary optimizations. Aggregated data is valuable and it is sold to any other industry. Helps with the slim margins of retail. They also get more pictures of you.

Because Macy's is a dinosaur living in its last days.

Because Macy’s may be going out of business like JC Penny’s and Dillards.