Amazon.com on Monday said that it will open a bricks-and-mortar grocery store called Amazon Go,
an ambitious bid by the once-online-only retailer to gobble up more of
Americans’ shopping dollars by taking the fight more directly to
traditional supermarkets and big-box stores.
The store will be
powered by a web of technology that allows customers to fill their
shopping bags and walk out without going through a checkout process, a
concept that has long been discussed in the retail industry but that has
not been implemented at major U.S. stores. The idea is that it will
shave time off the shopping experience. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief
executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)
Here’s how Amazon Go will work:
Customers download an app and then swipe their smartphones as they walk
through the store’s entrance. Then they start picking up groceries. In
a process that the company does not describe except to say that it
involves computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence,
every item the shoppers tuck into their bags or carts is tracked on the
phone. If an item is put back on the shelf, it’s deleted. As shoppers exit, their bill is calculated, a digital receipt appears on their phones, and their Amazon account is charged.
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