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Amazon Goes Cashierless in Convenience Store Experiment
Amazon.com Inc. may have ushered in another retail revolution by opening an 1,800-square-foot cashierless convenience store in the base of its Seattle headquarters. Amazon Go is the giant e-commerce company’s latest push into the more traditional realm of physical stores, yet it features a number of cutting edge technologies.
The backbone of the innovations are computer vision and machine-learning algorithms that are used to track shoppers and charge for items, which eliminates the need for checkout counters. Amazon even says the system is trained to recognize subtle differences in packaging, as well as the unpredictable movements of shoppers.
Amazon Go and Amazon Books’ Dilip Kumar told the Wall Street Journal the system is part of Amazon’s broader effort to reinvent how consumers shop. The company is seeking to transform shopping in physical stores, after decades of building its online retail prowess to great success.
Cameras are used throughout Amazon Go stores to track shoppers inside, though the company says it doesn’t use facial recognition. The way the system works is customers scan their phone when they enter a store, which creates a 3-D ID in the system. Cameras also capture interactions with consumers and goods. It can be challenging to identify items because of similarities, or if customers’ hands cover up any distinguishing aspects of a product label.
The Amazon Go store offers everything from staples to snacks to alcohol. Not all store employees are eliminated either, such as in the case of those to check customer identification for alcohol purchases or chefs preparing meals. And it is not the first time Amazon has launched a new brick-and-mortar concept. Amazon Books currently has 13 physical locations across the U.S.
The Amazon Go store is currently still in its testing stages, and the company has not yet announced any official plans to open additional locations, though Kumar indicated the company hopes to open more future stores. Another option is Amazon could sell the technology system to other retailers.
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