I think the vast majority of retail work does not need to be done by human beings at all. Spare the terrible customers and managers.
Now, of course, I’ve been fortunate enough to barely scratch the surface of working retail first-hand (two months of work-study), so maybe there’s something I’m missing.
I think the idea of keeping the jobs around for people who supposedly can’t do anything else is pretty crappy, as the government and society need to be pressured to adjust to keeping such people afloat and not bored.
You could have robots that stock the shelves, a specific time that the automatic doors no longer let anyone in (or just have stores be 24-hour), all self-checkout(and change the dumb thing about alcohol not being self-checkout eligible and add ID scanners (I’d also argue against strict drinking age enforcement, but that’s another discussion)), and robots that scrub the bathroom and mop. Utilities could be on timers. There are also now robots that can make basic fast food items and ones to bring them out that could be paired with kiosks to order. There’d be way less wrong orders.
You might need a few people around as technicians for the robots, emergencies, security, and to help people with more complicated products, but you definitely don’t need cashiers, store greeters, or shelf stockers.
I personally love self-checkout stations and loathe the idea of store greeters. I don’t need any unnecessary small talk in my shopping experience. I’d also imagine that someone who is only a store greeter is bored out of their mind in most cases and might be a pity hire in the case of a sheltered workshop. Maybe there could be a few specialty “human” mom and pop stores for the stubborn IE 6 using boomers (state of mind, not necessarily age) that want “real human connection”.