How has your experience been when it comes to shopping at the local grocery store? Do you love the kind of produce that is being offered on the store shelves, as well as the kind of service that you receive from the staff who man the different aisles? Well, if there is one thing that nobody likes, it would be long queues at the checkout line. After all, shopping can be a very tiring experience, and tempers can fray with emotional fuses running short, when you are in a rush to get back home and unload all of those groceries -- especially after a particularly long day at work. Well, Amazon is one of the names that many of us are more than familiar with when it comes to online shopping, and it is with great anticipation as to how Amazon has opened up a grocery store. What makes this grocery store unique would be the fact that it does not come with a checkout line. Known as Amazon Go, this particular grocery store is being tested out in downtown Seattle.
Amazon Go will allow customers to waltz through its doors, pick up whatever that they need or want from the store shelves, and simply walk out -- all without the hassle of lining up behind a checkout counter. Sure, it does sound as though it is a whole lot more convenient, but then again, it loses out on the human factor. There would be times when we are able to meet up with different friends within the community, catch up with one another as well as make an impromptu appointment to head out for a cup of coffee or tea afterwards. Sure, you might bump into someone else in an Amazon Go store, but this will lessen since we are all in a rush simply to pick up a particular item, only to head out shortly afterwards. When you are in a queue for a checkout line, things can be very, very different. The waiting time could be used to connect with someone else in the same queue.
How does payment work at Amazon Go stores then? You can bet your bottom dollar that a whole lot of technology is involved in the first place. Customers, upon picking up the item of their choice, will then tap their compatible smartphones on a turnstile as they walk into the store. Doing so will log the shopper into the store’s network, before connecting them to their respective Amazon Prime accounts via an app.
Amazon Go relies on an amalgamation of machine learning, sensors and artificial intelligence in order to track the various items that a customer picks up. These will then be shown on the virtual cart that is on their app, and if you do not want what you have picked up, simply place it back on the shelf (the right one, we presume), and your cart will be duly updated. Described by Amazon as "Just walk out technology", this project will be open to the masses some time early next year.
