Shop and GO - The Future of Supermarket Shopping

Another day in tech sees Jeff Bezos evolve yet another part Amazon’s services, now taking another angle into the retail market. Online shopping has definitely transformed the way we live and shop. Reviews, recommendations and just sheer convenience rides on reliable infrastructure. Pushing online shopping aside for a moment, Amazon rolled out their own physical stores in the form of Amazon Go in 2016 with a public experience in 2018. There are currently stores around the United States with a handful open in the states of Washington, Illinois, California and New York. The reception from the public and governments have been mixed and there are some social issues that might need exploring.

The store makes use of advanced surveillance technology that tracks all movements of customers and items. Deep learning analyses and makes things smarter in the backend while customers shop in tandem with an app on their phone. Simply place items into a bag and walk out and a bill will be applied, this might be a way to defeats long waits while a single cashier processes each item. It might mean the end of human jobs in this role but I certainly see the benefit. Amazon are now offering their Walk Out Shopping solution to third parties in an attempt to revolutionise the shopping experience. It was just a few years back that self-checkout got a little smarter and perhaps this is the way that society moves towards efficiency and better information when going around stores.

An app while shopping has so much potential. A unified platform that would recognise the store I visit would certainly allow me to find things much quicker. If a review system was implemented, it could allow me to make better choices when browsing. Smarter suggestions and shopping lists that are tailored through AI would enhance the shopping experience. Imagine pulling up a recipe and knowing exactly what you need, where to get it and how much it would cost. An immersive shopping experience with such a virtual companion is highly beneficial. Spending a little more time browsing and making the right choices without worry of getting stuck at the checkouts is a worthwhile trade off in a supermarket and I can see many other retail chains adopting Walk Out technology or similar. I hope to have my own Walk Out experience in the near future to form a better opinion, it’ll be interesting to see third part implementation too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/amazon-is-now-selling-its-cashierless-store-technology-to-other-retailers/