It’s All Go At New Amazon Store..
Monday, January 22, saw a revolution in retail when the Amazon Go store finally opened in Seattle, the world’s first check-out free shop.
The new convenience store is packed with sensors instead of tills.
The multiplicity of devices, tracking stock items, shopper and their mobile phones, feed a massive data crunching operation to maintain a picture of who is in the store where they are and what they have in their basket.
Then, of course, payments are taken from bank accounts as customers make for the exit.
Amazon is clear that it does not use facial recognition in the Go store.
It is more likely that, as a mobile phone with its Amazon Go app is detected at the door, cameras clock the consumer’s rough body dimensions and clothing styles/colours and track these around the aisles.
The store opened about nine months later than planned because, in testing, it could not cope with enough customers.
It also had trouble registering an item’s return if it was not put in the right place on the shelves.
One wonders how Amazon copes with the fairly common practice of two people filling one basket.
Also, we can only imagine how much havoc an inquisitive and not too closely supervised child could cause in the system as it trots around with wandering hands.
It will be interesting to see how it works out. Will devious minds succeed in identifying ways to beat the system?
Can the Go store build up sufficient trust in customers that their bills will be accurate.
Is the approach too complicated to scale up and cope with a full-size department store? Time will tell.
