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Amazon's much-heralded convenience store of the future, Amazon Go, may seem like a crazy experiment. But the company plans to open as many as six more of these storefronts this year, multiple people familiar with the company's plans have told Recode.
Some of the new high-tech stores are likely to open in Amazon's hometown of Seattle, where the first location is based, as well as Los Angeles, these people said. It's not clear if Amazon will open up Go stores in any other cities this year.
In Los Angeles, Amazon has held serious talks with billionaire developer Rick Caruso about bringing a Go store to The Grove, his 600,000-square-foot outdoor shopping Mecca, two of these people said.
And in Seattle, Amazon had identified at least three locations for additional Go stores as of last year, according to one source.
[...] News of the planned expansion of the Amazon Go concept is sure to set off fresh concerns about the great societal challenges that come with the type of automation that Amazon is inventing. Since the Amazon Go model does not involve customers checking out, there are no cashiers working in the stores.
Source: ReCode
Also Amazon reportedly plans to open more of its futuristic, cashierless stores this year
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:38PM (23 children)
The plan is to link it to a smartphone, I think. And it is more convenient than cash, because you don't need to take out your wallet or count your nickels.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:04PM (8 children)
Except it's not more convenient than cash, you see.
At any store which has self-checkout, I can walk in, grab what I want, scan my purchases, shove cash into the machine, and walk out. I know for a fact what amount I owed, I know for a fact what amount I paid, and I know for a fact that the transaction was concluded before I walked out. The self-checkout machine cannot overcharge me because it only has the amount of money which I give to it.
At a cashless inconvenience store, the transaction won't be concluded until after I walk out, after the store bills me, and I won't be sure what amount I was charged until after I check my bank account to see exactly how much the inconvenience store actually took from me.
The only way to make a cashless convenience store which allows shoppers to walk out without paying first is to make every item in the store free. Somehow I doubt Amazon is in the business of conveniently free stuff.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:06PM (1 child)
See my comment below regarding Self-checkout and booze sales in California. If you don't mind me asking, you're not from these parts, are ya?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @03:03AM
I can't speak for the other AC, but no, I'm not from "around these parts" (California). And thank goodness for that.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday February 26 2018, @02:24AM (2 children)
i dunno about you, but in this neck of the woods, even self-checkout counter can have a queue - and more often than not I run into problems with the weight scale and have to hand wave a store rep over.
With the amazon app you can see exactly what you're charged if you want to in the app and get a receipt after you pass the scanners. You are paying before you walk out, just not directly into your bank account but your amazon account much like a credit card account.
The credit card model have been working for decades, this is no different, just no need to do explicit scanning as their tech does continuous scanning while you're in store and no actual person and machine to feed in a physical token like a credit card as it is done remotely via the app in your device in your pocket.
Yes, there's a small chance you may be billed incorrectly, though haven't seen any news reporting that yet. Yes this is a big leap if you're still on cash, but that can be said of moving from cash to cashless via credit card. From credit cards to this? I'd say this beats the experience of credit cards.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @02:52AM (1 child)
You speak of cash as though all other forms of payments are upgrades.
Cash is to sysvinit as credit card is to systemd.
If I have a credit card, MasterCard or Visa can prevent me from paying any vendor they don't like, and I have no recourse.
When Amazon accepts bitcoin (openrc or runit), I might consider going to their store.
(Score: 1) by Woosh on Monday February 26 2018, @05:08PM
I agree a little. Cash has benefits. For example lower income families can more easily control their budgets when they have cash. If you have $20 in hand and the bill is $20.01, you put something back. On debit/credit you you pay $20.01 plus interest, overdraft fees, etc. However card service companies aren't activists. Certain vendors get better rates to accept Visa, Mastercard, etc. but its based on the volume and value of transactions, not whether or not they like them. I bet Planned Parenthood and the NRA both accept Visa payments. You can always go prepaid if you like that certain degree of anonymity.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 26 2018, @03:02AM
If you look at how these stores work [techcrunch.com] there is none of the issues you worry about. Everything you pick up and put in your cart is instantly on your phone with no need to do any math, or even scan it with your phone. Just shop till you have what you want or approach your limit and walk out.
You don't even have to bring your wallet, flash your cash or anything. Of course you't probably have to trust a bank or an app, own a smart phone and a data plan, and any body who sings the virtue of cash is probably not going to be caught dead in that camp.
But given you have all those things, (play along with me here) what could possibly be easier that walk in, pick up, and walk out like it was your own private pantry?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @05:02PM
To be fair this is a solvable problem and the only reason it is not solved here is because Amazon doesn't care about purchases that they can't link to an Amazon account.
All that is needed is a point of sale system that takes the same information, displays an invoice for the customer to review, then the customer pays (possibly with cash). This has the potential to massively speed up the point of sale process because it may completely eliminate the need to scan items one at a time.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:05AM
You have a rather odd definition of "convenient".
1. Walk into store. Take item. Walk out of store.
2. Walk into store. Take item. Go to cashier. Hand cashier exact cash. (optionally receive change from cashier.) Walk out of store.
The intended clientele aren't worrying over being charged 0.10 extra over what the label on the shelf said, and in any case I don't expect that to be a very common complaint.
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(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:05PM (3 children)
Another thing associated with convenience is booze and smokes. After California started implementing self-checkouts California lawmakers outlawed buying alcohol from self-checkouts -- and that still to this day has me pissed, just another instance of overreaching nannystate-ism.
Anyway, the Amazon Go stores in California will be all gimmick unless sales of booze and smokes, or at the very least one of those two, are allowed. As I stated before, those stores will be only in White neighborhoods and, unlike Blacks, Whites do their grocery shopping elsewhere. Whites go to convenience stores only go get beer and bags of ice for the beer coolers, replenish their supplies of emergency hot sauce, maybe a roll of paper towels or some asswipe. Whites don't drink convenience-store coffee or eat convenience-store hot food*.
* But Goddamn, when you have the munchies and everywhere else is closed, nothing beats a fat Big-Bite hot-dog drenched with nacho "cheese" product.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:14PM (1 child)
Your cashier job is safe! Continue selling booze to pregnant women and selling smokes to children.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday February 26 2018, @12:24AM
Uh -- you know I'm not Chaldean, right? I have moral standards, and at least here cashiers have the right to refuse service to anyone.
People do beer-runs from my store but the shrink is relatively small compared to what I've seen over by San Diego State. For example, one time I was doing some grocery shopping at a Vons near San Diego State, because as you well know Whites don't grocery-shop from convenience stores. Well, after I paid and exited the store, I saw in broad daylight a tall athletic Black kid lift a whole shopping cart full of beer and he was literally whistling and his steps were hopping and skipping as he walked the loot at a snail's pace across the parking lot. It was literally a Warner Bros. cartoon depicting a black beer thief in real-life. What was even more hilarious was the fact that two store employees gave chase, but weren't allowed physical contact, so the Black man continued to whistle to himself and twiddle his thumbs while the two store employees were giving chase but walking, rather than getting a running start and tackling the sonofabitch.
The perpetrator was most likely a student athlete. They bring in millions for the college, so they get free passes to behave like criminals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @03:12AM
Always interesting to hear from the People's Republic of California. In my neck of the woods, booze and cigarettes (and cough syrup, apparently) require the cashier to scan their badge and approve the sale. One cashier handles 6 express lanes or 4 grocery lanes.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:48PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday February 26 2018, @02:30AM (2 children)
Sure, they'll be a proportion of society that will cheat and con. They business question is then does the cost savings in automating away the legacy workforce & overhead, cutting out the payment middleman like credit cards and increase legit customer's satisfaction (due to time savings and less friction) and hopefully increase revisits offset all the negatives, one being the con cases, among other negatives...
I'm sure Amazon has enough smart folks to do some high level numbers to stack those pros/cons before they ventured into execution. There's no better way to get certainty than to execute on theory and see if it pans out.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday February 26 2018, @03:31AM (1 child)
They won't be able to cut off the c/c business. OK, within the Amazon property employees can buy with automatic link to their salary. Even that has specifics, given the taxes. But once these stores go forth and multiply, their customers won't be limited to Amazon workforce. The newcomers sure as hell will be using credit cards - just because it is stupid to refuse a free credit for a month. The savings will be only on workers - but they not only man the checkouts, they also refill the shelves, clean the spills and otherwise manage the store. If there are standard self-checkout kiosks, there is nothing to gain by training a camera at every customer and every shelf. Amazon is solving a problem that not only does not need a solution, but one that actively should not be solved - stores are an easy place for a junior to start his career and for a stumbled adult to find a guaranteed, albeit cheap, job.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday February 26 2018, @09:54PM
When I say credit card I meant physical cards. The CC comps are still there linked to Amazon pay, much like how they are linked to Paypal. That is already available long before Amazon Go came about.
I would disagree that there is no problem needing a solution. From my perspective as a retail buyer I'd say there is, and would welcome the day we can get rid of the checkout clerk and long queues that follow both the manned and unmanned checkout kiosk. Amazon probably sees a bunch of other problems as an industry player in the fast moving consumer goods sector.
I do agree that the disruption to the low-end retail workforce will not be pretty. Imho from a broader perspective, this digital renaissance is at odds to how our capitalist society works today, but rather than avoiding the former we should really look at tweaking the latter. Why should humanity be held back by dated practices?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @08:35PM (1 child)
Easier, steal rich person's phone, immediately visit Amazon store, grab everything. No cashiers, so wear a ski mask to hide your face from cameras, don't have to touch anything except the phone and stuff in the cart so no prints except the easily wipeable cart handle.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday February 26 2018, @10:00PM
Haven't had the pleasure of using Amazon Go yet, since there's none available in my neck of the woods.. but I'd think they would ask for some authentication like finger ID or pin on the app before entering the store?
Otherwise yea that would be dumb.. this would be an area they'd need to fix. Keep in mind they're field testing this, so there's plenty of room for improvement.
Btw, just because they can't recognize you in a ski mask, doesn't mean they can't acknowledge a crime in progress and refund/credit the owner for the lost and write it off as BAU or claim insurance, much like a credit card fraud. I'm sure they've had to factor these kind of stuff into their business plan... don't need an MBA for that...
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday February 26 2018, @12:17AM
Yea, but first you have to spend $$$ to join the collective and BUY and smartphone.
I'll keep my nickels, thank you very much.
(Or they could just round off the values. But that would be too simple - we have to do everything the fancy way!)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday February 26 2018, @01:29AM
Actually, paying by "hoodie and sunglasses"* is definitely the most convenient.
*Don't bring a smartphone, rather just wear a hoodie and sunglasses (gloves might not be a bad idea too). Walk in behind someone else, help yourself to whatever you want and walk out. Since that's what everyone else is doing anyway, it won't even look strange. Now that's what I call convenience!
I assume there's some sort of proximity thing determining which smart phone to charge which products. I'm sure that once young, single men are being charged for tampons and other amusing things, hilarity will ensue.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @01:47AM (1 child)
The real value of cash is that you can be anonymous. I'm in no hurry to be tracked by the likes of Amazon.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:10AM
Did you know that banknotes have unique serial numbers? Thankfully, nobody is tracking those numbers, just imagine the kind of analyses you could run with that data.
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