Amazon Go opens in Seattle

Today, Monday 22 January, Amazon opens its first Go store. It took years of research and experimentation, but the e-commerce giant has no intention of disappointing expectations.

This is a hyper-technological store based on artificial intelligence, with no trolleys, no checkouts and no payment on the spot: customers walk in, scan their Amazon customer code, put the products they want in a bag and walk out through the turnstiles. Simple.

These steps reproduce in real life what happens every day on the Amazon website or app: the customer goes to the site, puts what they want in the basket and checks out by clicking a button.

All this becomes physically possible thanks to the sensors and cameras in the store, together with a complex algorithm, which detect customers’ movements, what they put in their bag and what they put back on the shelf. The price of the items bought is charged automatically to the Amazon account when the customer passes the turnstiles on the way out, thanks to Just Walk Out Technology, which offers a fast, innovative buying experience with no time wasted.

The store mainly sells food, from smoothies made with freshly squeezed fruit to ready-to-cook meals and ready-to-eat boxes. Amazon seems to want to stay away from stereotypical American food, unhealthy and full of sugar, following the line of the Whole Foods supermarkets, the chain the giant bought last June.

Despite all the technology, the human side of a store is still there: it is still flesh-and-blood staff who stock the shelves, offer help or prepare a very fresh salad at the back of the store.

With this concept Amazon has pushed beyond the limits of computers and machine learning, placing its trust in dozens of cameras on the ceiling of the store.
A move from online to offline, certainly, but without losing sight of innovation and the chance to try out new ways of doing retail.