The supermarket with no tills... and no queues
Just pick what you want to buy and have bill sent to your phone
THE tills have gone – and so have the queues – in the first of a chain of Amazon Go stores.
Customers simply walk out with their shopping and pay for what they’ve picked up using an app on their smartphone.
While there are no conventional check-outs, there are employees who stock shelves, help customers and make up fresh food.
The convenience store is on the ground floor of Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle in the US and is expected to be the template for others in America, Britain and around the world.
Shoppers enter the store by swiping their smartphone carrying the Amazon Go App at a glass gate. There’s no need for a basket or tills because sensors on the shelves and cameras track the shoppers round the store and what items they pick up and put in their bag.
And if they decide to think again and put an item back, or swap one product for another, the sensors will detect this and make the deductions and changes.
On leaving the store, the value of all the purchases is automatically deducted from the credit card that is linked to the App. The Seattle store offers ready-to-eat breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks, as well as some grocery staples such as bread, milk, cheese and chocolates. It also has Amazon Meal Kits, which contain all the ingredients to prepare a specific meal.
At about 1,800 square feet, the Amazon Go store adds to the company’s growing bricks and mortar presence and its expansion into groceries after its purchase last year of organic grocer Whole Foods and its 470 stores. Amazon now has more than a dozen Amazon Books stores, which also sell toys, electronics and small gifts. It also has small shops in several malls.
The company will inevitably look at whether it is feasible to install the technology in Whole Foods stores, including those in the UK.
It has already trademarked the name Amazon Go in Britain and retail experts say it has approached a number of commercial property agencies for advice on securing stores here.
Head of Amazon Go, Gianna Puerini, said the store operated well during the test phase.
‘This technology didn’t exist – it was really advancing the state-ofthe-art of computer vision and machine learning,’ she said.
Amazon expert, Hugh Fletcher, of digital commerce consultancy Salmon, said: ‘The launch of Amazon Go, caters to shoppers’ craving for a friction-free, convenient and seamless experience.’
Mr Fletcher said the innovation might shake other bricks-andmortar stores into making changes – or else spell further trouble for the big supermarkets. Another market expert Rupal Karia of Fujitsu said: ‘In most cases, shop processes have been the same for decades. The launch of Amazon Go demonstrates how Amazon is …changing the model of a physical store as we know it.’