Amazon Go is where the physical and digital retail worlds merge to give the customers a unique ‘cashier-less’ shopping experience. Amazon’s concept convenience store opened in Seattle in January. Amazon Go features a rather traditional grocery store layout sans the checkout counters.
About Amazon Go
You enter the store, you pick the items that you need and you leave. What happens behind is that there are a lot of cameras. Amazon Go have replaced barcodes and cashiers with sensors and cameras to monitor which items leave the shelves and which are placed back. It is quite a lot like shoplifting, but better. There are a lot of cameras involved in this whole operation. The cameras track the purchases and then automatically charge the customers via a smartphone app. These cameras observe the movement from above while the shoppers browse.
The cameras click photos when customers enter the store, pick the items when they leave with the items in their hands. When the customer exits, the store’s system triggers a receipt that is sent to the shopper along with the bill. You get the receipt and your Amazon account is charged for your shopping. The customers have to scan the app on an automated turnstile to enter and exit the store.
How does it work?
According to Amazon, an assimilation of machine learning, algorithms, computer vision, and sensors are brought to use for efficient and accurate tracking of the items picked by shoppers. The items that are put back on the shelf are not billed. To shop at Amazon Go, all you need to do is an Amazon account, the free Amazon Go app, and a supported smartphone.
Amazon has revealed that it uses the technology twinning with driverless cars that uses sensors to create a real-time digital model of a roadway. So, the array of installed cameras and other sensors at Amazon Go, create a digital model of the store that keeps on updating itself in real-time as the items and shoppers move around the store.
Amazon has taken the implementation of artificial intelligence to a whole new level. Rather than scanning barcodes, using AI for item tracking is quite an impressive and data-intensive method of tracking inventory.
What does it do for Amazon?
Amazon Go allows the customers to enjoy the experience of an e-commerce website within the walls of a real retail store. If this technology spreads to other stores as well, it will move the cashiers to other tasks within the stores. Why did Amazon come up with such an idea? Well, it seems like rather than increasing sales, Amazon aims to increase its data collection. The company is going to collect a lot of data regarding a customer’s shopping habits while observing them from inside a brick-and-mortar store.
Amazon already tracks each click made on its website to bring forth changes basing on the click patterns. With a similar level of data in these stores, the company can learn a lot more about the customers purchasing habits. With Amazon Go, the company is offering the ease of walking out with your purchases for a wealth of data on consumer behavior.
Disclaimer: As An Amazon Affiliate, We Earn From Qualifying Purchases
