Amazon's 1st high-tech grocery store opens to the public - Action News
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Science

Amazon's 1st high-tech grocery store opens to the public

Amazon Go, a grocery store where you can pick up items and walk out the door without going through any kind of checkout, opens to the public in Seattle today.

Shoppers scan their smartphone at a turnstile, pick out the items they want and leave

In this Thursday, April 27, 2017, file photo, people walk past an Amazon Go store in Seattle. More than a year after it introduced the concept, Amazon is opening its artificial intelligence-powered Amazon Go store in downtown Seattle on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018. (Elaine Thompson/Associated Press)

Amazon.com Inc willopen its checkout-free grocery store to the public on Monday after more than a year of testing, the company said, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter brick-and-mortar retail.

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 US. Long lines can deter shoppers, so a company that figures out how to eradicate wait times will have an advantage.

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. (Jeffrey Dastin/Reuters)

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.

The convenience-style store opened to Amazon employees onDec. 5, 2016 in a test phase. At the time, Amazon said it expected members of the public could begin using the store in early 2017.

But there have been challenges, according to a person familiar with the matter. These included correctly identifying shoppers with similar body types, the person said. When children were brought into the store during the trial, they caused havoc by moving items to incorrect places, the person added.

A shopper is seen using his phone in the line-free, Amazon Go store in Seattle, Washington, U.S., January 18, 2018. (Jeffrey Dastin/Reuters)

Gianna Puerini, vice president of Amazon Go, said in an interview that the store worked very well throughout the test phase, thanks to four years of prior legwork.

"This technology didn't exist," Puerini said, walking through the Seattle store. "It was really advancing the state of the art of computer vision and machine learning."

"If you look at these products, you can see they're super similar," she said of two near-identical Starbucks drinks next to each other on a shelf. One had light cream and the other had regular, and Amazon's technology learned to tell them apart.

How it works

The 1800-square-foot (167-square-metre) store is located in an Amazon office building. To start shopping, customers must scan an Amazon Go smartphone app and pass through a gated turnstile.

Ready-to-eat lunch items greet shoppers when they enter.

Deeper into the store, shoppers can find a small selection of grocery items, including meats and meal kits. An Amazon employee checks IDs in the store's wine and beer section.

A customer walks out of the Amazon Go store, without needing to pay at a cash register. If someone passes back through the gates with an item, his or her associated account is charged. (Jeffrey Dastin/Reuters)

Sleek black cameras monitoring from above and weight sensors in the shelves help Amazon determine exactly what people take.

If someone passes back through the gates with an item, his or her associated account is charged. If a shopper puts an item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from his or her virtual cart.

Much of the store will feel familiar to shoppers, aside from the check-out process. Amazon, famous for dynamic pricing online, has printed price tags just as traditional brick-and-mortar stores do.

Amazon first conceived of the store years ago and applied for a patent on it in early 2015. At the time, many conventional industry players pooh-poohed the idea, saying it would never work and would lead to rampant errors in terms of neglecting to scan an item, or charging a customer for something they didn't actually intend to buy

With a file from CBC News