Amazon Go: Just go away
Dear Amazon,
It’s not you, it’s me.
Oh, wait — you’ve already heard that line before from this part of the world when Little Rock “dumped” you and your HQ2, headquarters, in that “Love, Little Rock” campaign.
Nevertheless, I’ve heard all about your fancy, shmancy futuristic Amazon Go mini grocery store that opened last week in downtown Seattle.
And, no, I don’t want to Go. First, your fully automated hightech, highfalutin store requires people to swipe an app at turnstiles to enter the convenience store.
When we’re juggling keys and a beastly handbag and maybe some kids and a shopping list — OK, admittedly it’s on my phone — and thinking of the 15 things we forgot to put on said list, it’s not really convenient to have to immediately whip out one’s phone that is surely battery-dead and (digging) at the bottom (still digging) of said bag (yet more digging). Here, let me hoist the beastly bag in a cart so I can get a better look.
What do you mean, there are no carts at Amazon Go?
Writes Nick Wingfield of The New York Times, a person I’m presuming doesn’t carry a purse and clearly doesn’t have small kids, “There are no shopping carts or baskets inside Amazon Go. Since the checkout process is automated, what would be the point of them anyway? Instead, customers put items directly into the shopping bag they’ll walk out with.”
Great. More baggage to schlep around. Thanks, Amazon.
From there, shoppers grab their organic kale salads, free-range eggs and asparagus water (remember, Amazon now owns Whole Foods) while equipment like overhead cameras and sensors in shelves read labels and collect data. When an item is removed from a shelf, it is added to the shopper’s “cart” — oooh! The store does have carts after all?! Alas, it’s only a “virtual cart.”
And then customers leave. That’s it. There is no checkout, and therefore no checkout line, no register, no cashier (though there are store employees who greet customers, prepare foods, stock inventory, etc.), no scanning, no bagging, no waiting and no paying. No normalcy.
Thanks to Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology, shoppers just walk out without inserting a credit card (only to be told to swipe the card instead; the reader isn’t working right … again). Their Amazon account is charged and receipts
are sent. Everyone can just be on their way.
(Well, maybe not everyone. Shared a user on Twitter: “Amazon’s new check-out free grocery store doesn’t accept food stamps. Super convenient, if you’re rich.” While we’re on the subject of money, it doesn’t sound like coupons are part of this scenario either.)
It all sounds so convenient. And so contemptible. I rather like going to the supermarket. And steering the germy cart with the jacked-up wheel all over the store. And then taking my place, inevitably in the slow line where I can people-watch and People watch, meaning reading all the tabloids. And putting my items on the belt, streaked with salmonella juice from the previous customer’s chicken. And making small talk with fellow customers and the cashier while fearing the whole time that my whole milk will spoil with how long the process is taking.
OK, none of the last paragraph is actually true. I order and pay for groceries online and pick everything up without so much as getting out of the car. I rarely if ever go traditional grocery shopping anymore — and when I do, it’s because all the pickup windows were filled.
I’m truthfully not turned off by the impersonal, automated nature of Amazon’s experiment, the impact it could have on jobs and the privacy ramifications.
I’m turned off by the exhaustion of it.
Why Just Walk Out when you can Just Drive On? Love, Jennifer