Date: 03/11/2022
Amazon described the original Amazon Go store as “a new kind of store with no checkout required”. The first Amazon Go in Seattle was basically a small convenience store with roughly 1,800 square feet of retail space and it’s this small format that is replicated elsewhere.
When you shop at one of these stores, you never have to wait in line. The store works with an Amazon Go app for iOS or Android: You enter, take the products you want and, thanks to the app, just leave again. The app is linked to your Amazon account for billing.
These stores work by using the same types of technologies found in self-driving cars, such as computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.
This technology can detect when products are taken or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in your virtual cart. When you leave the store with your goods, your Amazon account is charged and you are sent a receipt.
Analysis
Amazon’s use of technology typically used in vehicles for self-driving capabilities is a smart way of maximizing what it’s capabable of and expanding it’s applciation. Similarly, I think this technology could definitely be explored further in it’s application as it could be used to amplify the current experience of customers picking up their groceries after ordering them online making it even faster and easier.
Source
Pocket-lint. “Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh: How the ‘Just Walk out’ Tech Works.” Pocket, 11 Mar. 2022, https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/amazon/139650-what-is-amazon-go-where-is-it-and-how-does-it-work.
