Amazon opened its 6th cashier
-less convenience store in the United States just yesterday in San Francisco as they aim to expand their Amazon Go campaign. The Amazon Go store is very similar to most convenience stores as it carries prepared meals, snacks, drinks, and more. However, what differentiates Amazon Go from other convenience stores is their use of technology which eliminates the struggle of waiting in long lines.
Amazon is revolutionizing the retail industry by removing cashiers and allowing technology to handle the checkout process. As soon as you walk into the store, you scan in with your Amazon account. From there, numerous cameras and sensors keep track of what products you pick up and put into your shopping cart. With the help of artificial intelligence techniques, these items are automatically added to your virtual shopping cart on the Amazon Go app. In order to check out, you simply walk out of the store and you will be automatically charged for the products you had with you.
The San Francisco location is the first of its kind in the Bay Area as the previous stores are based in Seattle and Chicago. The first Amazon Go store came into existence towards the end of 2016. Amazon’s goal of these stores is to save their customers time, especially during morning or lunch rush hours. In fact, they even monitor the amount of time you spend at their stores to see how efficient you are. The concept seems like a great idea, but how practical is it?
The Amazon Go stores raise two questions: First, what happens to all the jobs lost by removing cashiers? This could raise unemployment as there are convenience stores on almost every block. Amazon claims that their stores would replace these jobs with ones in the back of the stores to prepare food and ensure the system runs correctly. However, there’s no way of telling if these jobs would be able to replace every single cashier position. Second, what is being done with the information collected by the cameras and sensors? Amazon claims to keep track of every move you take in the store, what you pick up, put down and how much time you spend looking at items. Could this information be used to market certain products to you? You may be spending less time at the store, but you’re giving up some privacy at the same time.