American online Shopping leader Amazon has worked on its Amazon GO project for the past four years and has finally launched it in Seattle. At first glance, it is a regular store, but with a closer look, there is something more inside. It is a new kind of store with no checkout lines or cashiers and the world’s most advanced shopping technology.
Amazon launches grocery store, now what?
The Amazon GO project managers decided to test how shopping would look when everyone can go into a supermarket, grab what she wants and simply leave the store without direct payments (ie. standing in long boring lines). The shopping process is quite simple: potential customer needs to install a special app on their smartphone, enters the store and shops like normal, and finally scans the QR-code with his smartphone and leaves the store. Seriously! That.is.it.
Amazon Go is totally managed by technology, specifically the much discussed artificial intelligence, machine Learning and video surveillance.
Certainly one of a kind
Presently, it is the only store of a kind and is situated on 2131 7th Ave in Seattle and occupies an area of 1800 square feet. During its beta-testing phase, it is accessible only by Amazon company workers but it will be opened to the public in the beginning of 2017.
Amazon has not explained or disclosed exactly how its technologies will provide such a consumer experience. Smart shopping is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.
This is a very smart store
The sensors developed by Amazon know when you pick up an item from the shelf and put it in your cart. It is possible to return goods on the shelf where it will then be removed from the customer’s tallying invoice. When the customer is done shopping and leaves the store, she will get a bill based on their shopping cart.
Amazon’s new high-tech shop offers not only regular goods, but also bakery, grocery and ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options.
Due to Amazon’s global scope and reach, it is also considered one of the most valuable brands worldwide. According to recent industry figures, Amazon is the leading e-retailer in the United States with more than 107 billion dollars in e-commerce and it ships 35 items every second. Nevertheless, Amazon is finishing this year with decreasing sales first time since it was founded in 1994. Perhaps that’s why, the billion dollar company is looking for ways to diversify its business and enter the offline market.
