content: At this point there are not "general purpose" industrial robots. An automation solution has to go through a firm, and be built pretty much from scratch. The costs of the physical machines and maintenance is cheaper than employees, but getting to that point is still expensive and requires an investment. If you have a production line that can be parallelized then your 2nd, 3rd, ... copies of the line are much cheaper, and that is why amazon is a lot more automated than bob's bait and tackle shop; once a system is in place they can price out competition and cheaply expand. This is also why fast food is going that way as well, but not independent restaurants.