SCIENCE FRICTION
Amazon dreams robot-staffed grocery: sources
If you’re a robot stealing somebody’s job, it’s best to stay hidden.
That’s what Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos appears to be thinking, as his Seattlebased Web giant has contemplated a two-story, automated grocery store in which a staff of robots on the floor upstairs grabs and bags items for shoppers below.
The ground-level shopping area of the futuristic prototype — which could span anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 square feet — will be devoted mainly to items that grocery shoppers typically like to touch, sources briefed on the plans told The Post.
Those could include as many as 4,000 items, spanning fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, meats and cheeses, and grab-it-and-go items like beer and wine, the sources said. Pharmacies might also might spring up at some of the high-tech locations, sources said.
But for many, the most striking feature of the stores could be that they operate with as few as three employees at a time, according to people briefed on the plans. Indeed, the plans call for staff to max out at 10 workers per location during any given shift.
“Amazon will utilize technology to minimize labor,” a source close to the situation told The Post.
The implications for profits could be huge. Indeed, Amazon is angling for operating profit margins north of 20 percent, sources said. That compares with an industry average of just 1.7 percent, according to the Food Marketing Institute.
Labor accounts for the lion’s share of a supermarket’s operating costs. In 2015, the industry employed 3.4 million workers nationwide, with the average grocery store employing 89 workers, according to the trade group.
The two-story design could also achieve eye-popping profits by slashing realestate costs. With robots up- stairs picking through between 15,000 and 20,000 staple items like breakfast cereal, spaghetti sauce, paper towels and soda, the setup could eliminate at least half the aisles that account for a supermarket’s sprawl.
Reached Sunday, Amazon officials denied it had any plans for a robot-driven supermarket chain. “As we’ve said previously, it’s not correct,” an Amazon spokesman told The Post. “We have no plans to build such a store.”
Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon envisions opening as many as 2,000 brick-andmortar grocery stores across various formats — a number the company disputed.
Nevertheless, insiders say the 2,000-store, nationwide goal is a real one inside the company, with execs planning a gradual rollout to gauge demand for the new concepts. A larger prototype could open as soon as late 2017, a source said.
The smaller format, an 1,800-square-foot convenience-store prototype called “Amazon Go” that was unveiled by the company last month, is now operating in Seattle.
As with Amazon Go, customers at the larger stores could use an app on their phones to track items they’ve picked off shelves for purchase, with the app automatically recording what they’ve grabbed with the help of electronic sensors.
Meanwhile, the robots upstairs will place the rest of the items on their list into bags and send them downstairs using “dumbwaiter”-like conveyers, according to a source.
No cashiers will staff the stores, although the plans do call for “greeters” that might serve as curbs against shoplifting, according to a source.