Amazon is pushing its way into physical retail with the introduction of the groundbreaking Amazon Go, a new store concept that allows customers to shop without the need for cashiers and registers. The online retail giant debuted Amazon Go in a video published on Monday, Dec. 5.
Unlike most physical retailers such as Walmart and Target, Amazon Go lets customers walk in and out of the store without ever dealing with checkout lines, cashiers, and cash. Using an app, Amazon Go shoppers can simply take the products they want and leave the store without waiting in line. This is made possible via Amazon's machine learning technology, which automatically detects every product placed in the shopper's virtual cart and automatically charges the shopper's credit card on her Amazon account. Sensors will detect every time a product is lifted off the shelf and a bill is sent to the customer's phone when the product is not put back.
Amazon says that the Amazon Go stores will be approximately 1,800 square feet, which is small compared to most major supermarkets. The stores will carry ready-to-eat meals and snacks, pantry staples such as bread and butter, and many other products. The first Amazon Go store will open in Seattle in early 2017.
Amazon Go is just one of three brick-and-mortar store concepts the online retailer is currently working on in a bid to master groceries, a retail category it has yet to succeed in. The two other store formats being developed by Amazon are reportedly bigger than the Amazon Go store, the Wall Street Journal has learned.
"It's a great recognition that their e-commerce model doesn't work for every product," Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson told Reuters. Currently, Amazon delivers groceries and produce to customers' doors via its AmazonFresh service. Dawson noted that Amazon Go would complement AmazonFresh. "If there were hundreds of these stores around the country, it would be a huge threat" to the supermarket chains, he added.
But Amazon Go isn't only a threat to brick-and-mortar supermarkets; others have noted that it threatens retail workers' jobs as well. On Monday, the New York Post called Amazon Go the "next major job killer." The outlet cited America's Research Group president Britt Beamer, who said that Amazon's register-less shopping concept could wipe out 75 percent of supermarket and grocery store workers. "It'll be a big job-killer," he said. "It'll eliminate the cashier, it'll get rid of the baggers, it'll eliminate the stock clerks. This could be big."