Amazon, the giant US retailer, has unveiled what looks like the prototype model for retail stores of the future with Amazon Go.
Shoppers simply swipe their mobile phone as they walk into the shop, select whatever they want to purchase and walk out. Through a combination of technologies, including facial recognition, cameras and sensors throughout the store, Amazon's app knows exactly which products were selected, charges you automatically and sends you the invoice/docket after you've walked out the store.
There's no need to stand in a queue for a checkout, scan products to get the total price or fumble around for credit/debit and loyalty cards.
So far there's just one location – in Amazon's home town of Seattle, and its limited to Amazon employees only. The public launch date is set for early 2017.
You can read and view more about Amazon's Go here.
Brent Franson, CEO of Euclid Analytics, a company that gives retailers the ability to track customers using their mobile wi-fi address has told Wired.com, "If I were creating supermarkets from scratch, I would have done something like this. I think this is the future of retail. I just expected, until we heard about this, that it was a little further out than it seems—or that Amazon is making it seem."
Supermarket retailers Woolworths Limited (ASX: WOW) and Coles – owned by Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) are already trying to use technology to cut down costs via its self-serve checkouts. But the use of those checkouts has revealed another problem –theft and mistaken scanning – which is estimated to cost Coles alone $1.1 billion annually.
While Amazon's Go product looks like the future of retail, it could also be extremely expensive to retrofit existing stores and supermarkets with the technology, as well as add the extensive technology being used to new stores. Some of that would be offset by no longer needing to have checkout operators, or only having a very small number.
It will take some time to iron out the problems that will no doubt arise, but I could easily see most retail stores including supermarkets featuring no checkouts in future.
