You are standing in line, waiting for your turn so that you can shell out money and take your stuff home.But the line is long and the billing process is extremely, excruciatingly slow — Every customer’s nightmare. Well, Amazon knows this and has come up with an ingenious way to take care of the issue.
Amazon has launched a brand new grocery store that seems to have consumer comfort at its center. Customers do not have to stand in long queues or checkout counters and waste half their Sundays. The 1800-square-foot retail space, Amazon Go situated in Seattle and lets shoppers pick up any item they want and leave. Yes, Just like that!
The order gets charged to their Amazon account afterwards.
Here’s how the grocery store works:
- It works by using computer vision and sensors to detect what items you’re taking out of the store.
- As you enter the store all you have to do is scan an App.
- As you leave, the sensors at the door identify the items you have picked.
- The items are charge to your account as your phone passes back out the door.
- A number of cameras at the store keep a watch at all the activities of customers.
Just like any other grocery story, Amazon Go is home to a large number of items starting from snacks, drinks, pre-made food like salads & sandwiches and grocery essentials like bread, eggs and milk.
Slow clap for the novel system the company has come up with to make this idea a success. The company has installed a system wherein it can track you and your phone as you browse the store to buy your grocery. By looking at your movements in the store, Amazon will keep a close watch at the items you may have noticed or were interested in buying.
Your activities like picking something up off a shelf and putting it back down will also be closely watched. To put it simply, it works exactly how you click on an item while shopping on Amazon online (Amazon.com) and you get more recommended products based on what you may have browsed.
I can’t even begun to comprehend the whole bunch of technologies that probably went into making this store possible. Machine learning, visual recognition and a whole bunch of other stuff. Currently the store is open in beta to Amazon employees only, which means that it is not perfectly ready quite yet. However, it is expected to open for the masses in early 2017. Well, if it actually works, it could really revolutionize the way we shop.
Amazon really has surprised everyone with this masterstroke. I mean cashless used to be the big thing where you could pay for whatever you wanted with your credit/debit card. Now though, you don’t need to pay at all. Simply pick up whatever you want and leave. Whew! Talk about innovative ideas!
