Amazon Go is the supermarket of the future without cash or waiting: Here is how it works
It seems to come from the future, but is already active in the mother city of the giant Bezos. Amazon Go is as it should be any supermarket, no cash, no waiting.
Amazon has just unveiled Amazon Go, a grocery store with no queues, no crates, no waiting. With an area of about 170 square meters store will be opened in Seattle, in the mother city of the e-commerce company, and will allow customers to get the products they want and leave without having to wait long queues or having to pay the cashier. Orders placed will be automatically debited Account Amazon of the person carrying them.
As? Amazon Go uses computer vision algorithms, machine learning, and spread along the surface of the store sensors to detect which products the user moves away from the store. Upon entering the store you scan an app on your smartphone, then it performs the traditional cart with sensors that ” observe ” the individual customer moves: you can take the products, put them on the shelves, take them back as many times as you want, and the system will perceive each individual user’s movement.
The products will be charged to your account only once the customer has flowed out of the store without having to wait in line to pay the cashier. Amazon Go will have the appearance of a traditional convenience store (without the department where you make payments, of course) and will sell typical products of the shops of the category: snacks, beverages, prepared food, basic food like bread and milk. All with an approach that can be defined as less futuristic.
From the point of view of the consumer, the benefits are obvious: you enter the shop. They take the products that you need and go out quietly by shopping with record timing. But it is from Amazon viewpoint that the benefits are less obvious: with a camera system aimed perpetually on customers, and machine learning algorithms ready to analyze all their moves, Amazon can access a vast amount of data.
The company monitors the movements of who enters the store perceiving the individual customer interests. By combining these measurements to shipping activities on the portal of e-commerce Amazon can further refine the profiling of individual customers of the service, so being able to offer advice on the increasingly targeted and specific purchases. Amazon Go is another automation pioneer utter, even if the store does not wholly eliminate the human presence.
While there is no need cashiers, it seems to have been not (yet) an integrated system for the supply of the products on the shelves, a procedure that probably is accomplished by employees. The shop is already open in a ” beta ” for Amazon employees, and will be open to the public in early 2017. The goal is to create at least 2,000 stores in the US with the same approach, but of a different type, and aim to compete with the American retail giants.
