“The first clue that there’s something unusual about Amazon’s store of the future hits you right at the front door,” writes The New York Times (Jan.22, 2018). A row of gates guard the entrance to Amazon Go, allowing in only people with the store’s smartphone app. Inside is an 1,800-square foot market packed with typical shelves of food. But the technology that is also inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through those same gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door.
There are no shopping carts or baskets inside Amazon Go. Instead, customers put items directly into the shopping bag they’ll walk out with. Every time customers grab an item off a shelf, the product is automatically put into the shopping cart of their online account. If customers put the item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from their virtual basket. Checking out actually resembles shoplifting, with no lines, cashiers, or clunky self-checkout kiosks to slow down the process.
The only sign of the technology that makes this possible floats above the store shelves — arrays of 100’s of small cameras throughout the store. The cameras track shoppers once they are inside, though they don’t use facial recognition. A customer entering the store scans his or her phone and then becomes represented internally as a 3-D object to the system. Cameras also are pointed at the shelves to determine interactions with goods.
There are about 3.5 million cashiers in the U.S. — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Why do you think the opening of the 1st Amazon Go, in Seattle, was delayed a year? (The store opened Jan. 29, 2018).
- Can this technology be spread to much larger supermarkets? Why?