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Is Amazon Go's checkout-free store the future of retail, or just an expensive gimmick?

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Amazon Go is a high-tech, checkout-free shopping experience, but is it the future of retail bricks and mortar stores?
Amazon
Amazon Go is a high-tech, checkout-free shopping experience, but is it the future of retail bricks and mortar stores?
Amazon
The system tracks what you take off the shelf and adds it to your online bill
Amazon
Upon leaving the store you are charged for whatever you picked up but didn't put back
Amazon
A QR code is scanned to enter the store and start your shopping session
Amazon
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Amazon's hi-tech, cashier-free convenience store has just opened to the public and predictably resulted in torrents of "store of the future" headlines. Unveiled a year later than initially announced, and reportedly at least five years in the making, it is clear this is an impressive state-of-the-art, tech-heavy retail experience, but is it really the future of shopping? Or is it just a very expensive publicity stunt?

It was late in 2016 when Amazon revealed its upcoming experiment in bricks-and-mortar retail. Designed to eliminate the hassle of waiting in lines at the check-out, the store is basically a giant surveillance device that tracks everything you pick up off the shelf and charges you accordingly upon leaving the premises.

The store, called Amazon Go, was scheduled to open to the general public in early 2017 after extensive beta testing with Amazon employees. But by March it still hadn't opened and rumors began to swirl that the technology wasn't working well enough for a general public opening. Amazon suggested it wasn't technical difficulties delaying the opening but rather just expansive testing with a high number of internal employees.

After several months of radio silence, the new hi-tech retail experience located at the bottom floor of the company's Seattle headquarters has finally opened to the general public, and in the face of journalists trying to steal things or fool the technology, it all seemed to work pretty well.

The system is surprisingly straightforward, without the need for specific tags on items or blank branding. It begins with a customer adding the Amazon Go app to their smartphone. Launching the app, connected to an Amazon account with a valid credit card, a QR code appears. To get into the store a customer passes through a turnstile that is unlocked by flashing the unique QR on their phone.

A QR code is scanned to enter the store and start your shopping session
Amazon

From this point on a plethora of cameras begin tracking your every move. When you pick an item up off a shelf the system can identify you and the item, adding it to your virtual shopping cart and removing it from your cart if you return it to the shelf. When you walk out of the shop the system simply automatically charges you for whatever it assumes is in your bag, and from early reports it actually works pretty well.

Upon leaving the store you are charged for whatever you picked up but didn't put back
Amazon

We've seen checkout-free convenience stores before, but nothing as technologically advanced as this. What Amazon has created is undeniably impressive, but what the long-term plan is for this huge investment of development time and money is still unknown. Amazon owns the mega franchise Whole Foods but there has been no indication of plans to roll the concept out past this single experimental store. In fact Amazon's Vice President of Technology has gone as far as saying to Recode, "There are no plans to ... introduce this technology in any of the other physical settings that we have."

How well the system works over time and whether it still has bugs to be ironed out will become apparent over the coming months, but a big question hovering over the entire experiment is how much it costs. Outfitting an entire space with such a complex camera and computing rig would not be cheap. For comparison, a current four-lane self-service supermarket set up costs around US$125,000, and the Amazon Go infrastructure is exponentially more complicated.

The system tracks what you take off the shelf and adds it to your online bill
Amazon

Overall, the system doesn't exactly entirely eliminate staffing costs either. You need humans to restock shelves (although Amazon is reportedly developing robots for that very task), a help desk for returns and problems, and the Amazon store has even had to hire someone to stand next to the alcohol section and check identification. So this isn't exactly a human-free experience.

Amazon Go is undoubtedly an interesting experiment, but for now, and the near future, it is still significantly cheaper for humans to run these stores. The millions of people who work in similar roles in the United States need not worry. Amazon Go is more likely a fantastic display of technological innovation in 2018 than a demonstration of a store of the future.

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7 comments
Simos Kozanidis
"It is STILL significantly cheaper for humans to run these stores". The question is for how long the 'Still' will be relevant. 2 years? 5? I think not much more than that. Add a few more to refurbish existing stores. Then we need to be worried.
ZachariahE.Nelson
We'll probably not see this store in it's entirety anytime soon. But the dozens of technologies introduced here are probably gonna trickle down into actual retailers. Sam's Club and Costco can replace the membership greeters with those QR codes and turnstiles. Everyone could probably use the intelligent stocking system.
Buzzclick
This like a solution to a non-existing problem, unless you are a millennial who can't stand waiting in a store queue. The same silly nonsense as all the efforts to produce self-driving cars; complex and unnecessary. One cannot underestimate peoples' desire for flashy gimmicks.
Bruce H. Anderson
Amazon has money to burn. The grocery business has such low margins that this will most likely remain a testbed for technology, some of which may get to your typical grocery store.
ZachariahE.Nelson, Sam's club (mine at least) has already eliminated greeters, and BJ's Wholesale never had them.
Jo Roderick
Considering how many times Amazon has made errors and refused to even acknowledge the person when they attempt to rectify the situation, and how it treats the supplier of goods in general, how many people will trust Amazon Go shopping? Just wait until they bill you for something you never took.
IvanWashington
if this type of store is the only one available in the future, it brings to mind the biblical thing about not being able to buy or sell without the mark. working class people who can't afford to have/use a smartphone will not have the "mark" it seems.
Derek Howe
owlbeyou - While I don't see this taking off any time soon, I disagree about self driving cars. A lot of people either can't drive, or don't want to drive. Self driving cars will sell themselves, the demand is high.