On Monday, December 5, online retailing (零售) giant Amazon announced the opening of its first physical store. Called Amazon Go, the Seattle-based store that is currently being tested by company employees, learns from regular grocery stores except for one thing — "Just Walk Out" technology. All purchases are handled electronically, which means there are no cashiers, checkouts or lines. Shoppers simply take what they need and leave.
To shop at Amazon Go, customers need to open an Amazon account and download the store's App onto their smartphones. Upon entering the store, they scan a QR code (二维码) with their phones and begin shopping. Every item picked up gets added to the bill automatically. If the customer changes his/her mind, all he/she has to do is return the purchase back on the shelf, and it will be removed from the final bill. Once the customer leaves the store, the amount spent is automatically taken out from the Amazon account and a digital receipt is generated to remind the shopper of the trade.
To provide busy customers a pleasant shopping experience, Amazon, which has been working on this concept for four years, plans to keep the store size at a "comfortable" 1,800 square feet. In addition to typical grocery products like bread and milk, the store will stock ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch and dinner options, made by on-site chefs. There will also be chef-designed Amazon Meal boxes for those who prefer to cook the food at home.
After years of joint efforts by Amazon staff, Amazon Go finally opened in 2021. Amazon will not provide any insight into the cutting-edge "Just Walk Out" technology. The company website states, "The checkout-free shopping experience is enabled by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning."
