Amazon’s latest venture blurs the lines of online and in-store retail

The Amazon Go store employs Amazon’s “just walk out” technology, which only requires shoppers to have their smartphones with them when they walk into the store.

With the first store opening early in 2017 on Seattle’s 7th Avenue, we can’t wait to see if this new shopping experience is a massive hit or a miserable miss. Using a combination of advanced imaging, machine learning, and other technical processes, the store automatically scans the items a shopper leaves with and bills them accordingly.

Computer vision, deep-learning algorithms, and sensors similar to the ones found in self-driving cars support the experience.

Although it may sound like a shoplifter’s dream, know that the store uses something called “Just Walk Out technology”, which can track when items have been removed from the shelves.

Amazon says that Amazon Go will also sell grocery staples, as well as “ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options made fresh every day by our on-site chefs and favorite local kitchens and bakeries”.

While Amazon is moving into brick-and-mortar grocery shopping, other large retailers are expanding their online services. Amazon has not yet provided further details about how these technologies work.

Amazon opened its first physical store, Amazon Books, a year ago in Seattle.

After years of rumors that Amazon is going to launch its own retail stores the company today unveiled its vision for the grocery stores of the future. For starters, Amazon Go will probably need fewer workers than traditional stores that rely on cashiers and clerks. The company now delivers produce and groceries to homes through its AmazonFresh service. You will then be charged from your Amazon account with a receipt. No lines, no checkout. After all, having an expensive smartphone shouldn’t be a requirement to enter a grocery store.

“The checkout lines are always the most inefficient parts of the store experience”, Neil Saunders, managing director of retail research firm Conlumino, told Reuters. Also available: Amazon Meal Kits, containing all the ingredients needed to make a meal for two in 30 minutes.