Amazon Ditches Cashiers & Checkouts In Automated Grocery Store

Amazon plans to build physical grocery stores with no cashiers and no checkouts. Customers at the  Amazon Go store will simply load up their bags and walk out the door.

The first store, in Seattle, is already being used by Amazon staff as an experiment, with a public opening planned for early next year.

Customers will have to install a dedicated app on their smartphone. This displays a unique QR code which the customer will scan as they walked through a turnstile to enter the store.

Tracking what the customer bought will work in a similar way to sophisticated minibars in hotel rooms. When a customer picks an item up from a shelf, a combination of cameras and sensors will record it being added to their shopping cart (both physical and digital.) If they put the item back on the shelf after examining it, it will be removed from their digital cart, which is an advance on minibars.

The idea is that once the shopper is finished they simply walk out the door and go home. Once the system detects they are done shopping, it charges their Amazon account and delivers a digital receipt.

How closely the experience matches up to the promotional video remains to be seen, and it certainly appears to be an invitation for more creative hackers/shoplifters to take on the challenge. There’s also the question of how much inconvenience timewasting in grocery stores comes from the checkout line and how much from either looking for goods in stores with too limited a range, or choosing between brands and products for those with too much on offer.