Is Amazon Go the Future of Retail?

For today’s consumer, convenience is king. Amazon, the e-commerce giant making billions on convenient shopping, has unveiled a new retail model that hopes to make shopping even easier for customers: cashier-free stores.

The technology, called Amazon Go, enables customers to walk in, select what they’d like and leave — no lines, no cashiers, no fumbling to grab your wallet, nada. Amazon describes this as “just walk out” technology, which made its debut in a convenience store setting in Seattle, Wash., in December.

While the concept is simple, the technology is anything but. As the customer enters the store, he/she uses their smartphone to scan themselves in via the Amazon app. Then, it’s a combination of computer vision, deep learning algorithms and sensor fusion to detect what items are picked up as shoppers navigate the store. When customers leave, the total cost of the items is charged to the shopper’s Amazon account.

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For now, Amazon Go only sells simple groceries found in convenience stores like bread, milk, simple snacks, drinks and premade sandwiches and salads. Though the store is currently only open in Seattle and exclusive to Amazon employees, there are plans to open it to the public later this year.

More recently, Amazon debuted AmazonFresh Pickup, a service that allows customers to order groceries online, drive to a brick-and-mortar store and have their groceries loaded into their car by an Amazon employee. As USA Today reports, “No money changes hands as the entire transaction takes place via the Amazon app or at home on the customer's computer.”

What do you think of Amazon’s new retail strategies? Do they have the potential to help, or harm, our industry?