Supermarket cashiers would be a thing of the past at Amazon Go’s new supermarkets and pop-up stores slated to open next year.
Bloomberg reports that Amazon is expanding from its Go convenience stores to enter the supermarket realm, and is looking to license out its technology to expand to even more retailers. The basis of Amazon Go’s stores is that customers can walk in, grab what they need, and go. An Amazon Go Supermarket would be larger than its convenience stores and offer more products, but have the same concept.
The Go supermarket stores would reportedly be as large as 30,000 square feet, which is about the average size of other supermarkets, according to Bloomberg. Amazon Go’s convenience stores are usually only 2,000 square feet. Perfecting the technology for a supermarket-sized Go store means Amazon has been testing its technology and cameras on much larger groups of people.
Supermarkets are the latest stores where Amazon is trying to implement its Go technology. The company is also reportedly looking into licensing the technology of cashierless go stores to airport stores and kiosks, movie theaters, and retail locations at baseball stadiums.
Amazon opened its first Go store at the start of 2018 and currently has 16 of them operating throughout the U.S. Each one is packed with cameras and sensors that track what customers take off of the shelves as they make their way around. When they exit the store, the cost of what items they picked up while shopping is automatically charged to their Amazon account, rather than having to wait in line and have a cashier check the items out. The goal is greater speed and convenience, as shoppers don’t need to fumble about for cash, a card, or a smartphone to pay.
Although Amazon owns the Whole Foods supermarket chain, the new cashier-free supermarkets would be a separate supermarket concept from Whole Foods. There are reports that Amazon has already begun testing a type of cashier-less biometric technology for Whole Foods shoppers, which would include shoppers merely scanning their hand at checkout.
Digital Trends reached out to Amazon to comment on the plan for Go supermarkets, and an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.