Amazon is scaling back plans for its supermarket technology that would allow shoppers to simply grab items from shelves and leave the store. The networked shopping cart with cameras will instead be used in the in-house “Amazon Fresh” supermarkets in the USA in the future, said the responsible top manager Tony Hoggett to the website “The Information”. It has been found that this is more popular when shopping in larger retail spaces, he explained. Among other things, customers wanted to have a better overview of how expensive the purchase would be for them.
Amazon’s carts show the price of the goods and the total value of the purchase on a display. To do this, you have to hold the items in front of the shopping cart camera. At the end of the purchase, the customer can leave the store past the checkouts and the amount will be deducted from their Amazon account. For people who don’t want to use this, there are also traditional cash registers.
Right strategy for stationary retail?
Amazon has been trying to find the right strategy for brick-and-mortar retail for years. The group wants to stand out with more convenience when shopping. A central idea is to make cash registers unnecessary. The company has been using the technology, which automatically detects which items buyers are picking up from the shelves, in Amazon Go stores for years, which are significantly smaller than usual supermarkets.
She will continue to be used there, said a spokeswoman. It will also remain in the smaller “Fresh” stores in Great Britain. The group also offers the technology to other retailers. It is considered rather complex with the installation of many cameras and sensors, among other things, on the shelves.
The world’s largest online retailer also bought the US grocery chain Whole Foods in 2017, which had previously had little experimentation. Whole Foods is considered rather expensive in the USA, while the more than 40 “Amazon Fresh” stores so far have similar prices to other supermarkets.