Amazon Just Opened Its First Cashier-less Grocery Stores and It Looks...Interesting
We use Amazon for just about everything, from stocking up on books to restocking our makeup cabinet. But one of the company's selling points—for us, at least—has been the convenience of not having to leave our houses for the aforementioned books and cosmetics. Apparently others disagree with us, since the retail giant just opened a brick-and-mortar grocery store, Amazon Go, in Seattle. It's high-tech and comes without the cashiers, registers or lines. Check it out.
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To shop, you have to download a corresponding Amazon Go app and enter the store's location. Right now, that's only the Seattle store—there's been no word yet on if (and where) Amazon plans to open another.
Once you scan in via the app, Amazon Go looks pretty much like every other grocery store, with fresh and prepared foods, along with meal kits and—because it was the first thing we wondered—copious amounts of LaCroix.
As you're shopping, Amazon keeps track of every item you pick up and keep (it can tell when you put something back down). Per The New York Times, that technology is enabled by hundreds of tiny cameras throughout the store that "can see and identify every item in the store, without attaching a special chip to every can of soup and bag of trail mix."
Once you've gotten everything on your list, you walk out. When you leave, Amazon charges your account based on the items you've kept. No word on if it knows how many grapes you ate while walking around.
