Amazon.com Inc will open its checkout-free grocery store to the public today after more than a year of testing, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter brick-and-mortar retail.
Posted on Reuters | By Jeffrey Dastin
The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous – customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file.For grocers, the store’s opening heralds another potential disruption at the hands of the world’s largest online retailer, which bought high-end supermarket chain Whole Foods Market last year for $13.7 billion. Long lines can deter shoppers, so a company that figures out how to eradicate wait times will have an advantage.Amazon did not discuss if or when it will add more Go locations, and reiterated it has no plans to add the technology to the larger and more complex Whole Foods stores.
Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous – customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file.
Read entire article Amazon’s automated grocery store of the future opens Monday | Reuters