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CNN Live Today

E-Z Shop

Aired August 29, 2002 - 10:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Automatic teller machines are everywhere, and automated gas pumps are gaining popularity. Now get ready for the automatic convenience store. No clerk, just a lot of stuff, 24 hours a day.
CNN's Bob Franken has a look at the only one in the country, and you're taking it out for a test drive for us there, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are going to try. This is a giant vending machine. Actually, we had some success earlier. We used a $20 bill and got change, the dollar coins.

We are going to buy this time the half dozens of eggs they offer. They offer a wide range, soup to nuts, everything from various toilet articles, to sodas, to milk, to different kinds of soup, et cetera, et cetera. We are going to try the eggs, to see if in fact they with stand being tossed out of the top of this vending machine.

And also, while we are in the breakfast items, we want to keep the crew happy, so we are going to get some Pop Tarts.

Yes, the eggs are potentially too healthy. So anyway, we are putting in the amount of money, which is the first thing you have to do.

OK, now the eggs are item are 320. I made it wrong. So let's cancel the item and do it wrong.

Now, something that is very interesting here, is that although they are supposed to be human contact, let me see now, it says add the quantity, press 0 and go on. And now we want to go on to 102, and that's eggs, and Pop Tarts blueberry. So let's see what happens. By the way, that cost $3.75 in case you're wondering. What is supposed to happen, here we go. Now it's moving, and you see this terrible thing, which probably would scare the daylights of children if they're watching. So you might want to shield their eyes.

At any rate, it's picking up the Pop Tarts first. Now, one of the things it's supposed to electronically do is to pack the food that, for instance, if you're buying eggs and milk, that the milk won't break the eggs. If that works, it will make it better than an awful lot of human checkout lines in the supermarket. I will probably offend some of the checkout clerks right now.

At any rate, here come our eggs and here come our pop tarts, and it looks like everything is going to work right, and are going to can have breakfast here, which of course, as you know, a fed crew is a happy crew.

And at any case, this is something that has been out here for the last couple of weeks. Here is some real irony. What many people think about these things, what immediately comes to mind is the automat in New York, which no longer exists and used to dispense food, prepared food, that type of thing, and it really was sort of knocked out of existence by fast food organizations.

Right now I'm reaching in to see -- OK, crew, here of the pop tarts. I'll put those over there for you.

Now let's check out the eggs. This is what we really care about. Look at that, not broken, which is unusual from the eggs I usually find.

WHITFIELD: Not bad.

FRANKEN: I'm sure when this is over, people will say I laid an egg, but in this case, they'll be literally correct.

WHITFIELD: So, Bob, you have to bring your own bag? There is no one there to bag it for you.

FRANKEN: That's a point. Apparently there is no bag here. Here is what I consider a fatal flaw. Unlike the convenience store, firs of all, this has about 200 items. A convenience store has about 2,000 we're told. They don't have Slurpees here. This is fatal. They don't have that. They don't sell lottery tickets, although I'm sure they could fix that.

But getting back to automats, what is so interesting about this, to me, is the fact that automats in New York where you can buy prepared foods were ultimately surpassed by fast food places, like McDonald's. Guess who's one of the owners of this Tic Toc E-Z Shop? McDonald's.

WHITFIELD: Of course.

FRANKEN: So it all comes together.

HARRIS: I'm sorry, I want to jump in on this. What I want to know is how do they decide which items or the kind of items they put in the window to begin with?

FRANKEN: Well, I suspect they're going to do market research. The interesting thing is they talk about the fact this would be a place where you could shop without any human contact. However, these things don't always work. So there is a person here -- this has only been in operation for a few weeks. There is a person here from the company that keeps it stocked who stays here. If something doesn't work, out he comes. So if in fact, you are that antisocial shopper, you may be disappointed.

WHITFIELD: bob, is that attached to another convenience store, or just a free-standing kind of storefront there? FRANKEN: Well, this is free standing as something that can be that is about 200 square feet. There are convenience stores not far from here. In fact, the people at convenience store shops say that what you are going to miss with something like that is the contact with the clerk. Some of the people we have talked to who used this thing say that's one of its attractions. So you decide how much you like convenience stores.

WHITFIELD: All right. We just got wait and find out when this is available, whether this is successful at all, and whether it will come to a corner near you.

FRANKEN: It would have to a Big corner.

WHITFIELD: All right, Bob, thanks a lot.

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