The multi-millionaire company Amazon is all set to expand its like of business with its first ever checkout-free grocery store to the public on Monday, continuing with an experimental trial that could dramatically change traditional retail shopping.The Seattle store, called Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers take off shelves and what they return. Cash registers and checkout lines become redundant; customers pay with a credit card on file after they leave.
Named “Just Walk Out Technology,” the system uses advances in cloud computing such as sensor fusion and deep learning algorithms to identify what shoppers put in their baskets. The fee is then automatically calculated and paid when the user leaves the building. Sensors both in the store and on customers’ smartphones are used to build and monitor geofences (virtual parameters in physical areas) that not only identify what users select or put down, but also help control the inventory system of the store.
To begin shopping, customers must scan the Amazon Go smartphone app and pass through a gated turnstile. If someone walks through the door with an item, their linked account will be charged. If a shopper puts an item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from their virtual cart as well. In terms of groceries, the opening of the store heralds a potential issue at the hands of the company, which brought a void in the high-end supermarket chain in the past as well; the Whole Food Market (for $13.7 billion). Amazon did not discuss if or when it would add more Go stores, reiterating that it has no plans to add the technology to larger, more complex whole foods stores. The convenience store was opened to Amazon employees in a beta phase in December 2016; at the time, the company said it expected the public to start using the store in early 2017 but took all these years to successfully set up the project.
According to witnesses present, there was an issue with this matter; mainly, it includes identifying shoppers with similar body types correctly. Similarly, when children were brought into the store during the trial, they caused a huge havoc by messing most items around. However, reacting to it, the Vice President of Amazon Go, Gianna Puerini , told the media that the store has performed relatively well in the trial phases, and later thanked the efforts of everyone involved in making it true. Talking more about the convenience of the store, she reiterates, “As the technology exists, it really dives the latest developments in computer and machine learning, for which most become convenient.”
