On Amazon Go

Last month, Amazon announced Amazon Go “register-less stores”, as a new addition to their arsenal in their grand pursuit to own American wallets both online and in stores. The pilot, which will kick off in one Seattle store, will use technology to monitor what users are purchasing and allow them to simply exit the store without actually paying at a register, followed by an automated charge to their account.

This is a truly grand feat. It’s taken them almost four years of testing to accomplish this, and yet, it still does not have 100% accuracy. It’s even being mocked by some pretty funny social media posts, with people saying they’ve been just taking goods from stores and walking out without paying for years. The mockery does highlight the nature that consumers, as with any new technology, will be out for ways to scheme the system and cash in on some free groceries.

While I don’t agree with exactly how Amazon has gone about building this out, I do think they are onto something big. With all of the technology in our hands and integrated in our daily lives, there’s got to be a way to reduce the speed of the point-of-sale (POS) transaction for other types of retailers. The CVS self-checkout stands are a great stride in the right direction, but I think they’re missing the greater picture. Also, the voice on those machines that talk to you couldn’t be more annoying… but I digress.

There has to be a way for other stores to leverage this type of technology without building out the entire chain like Amazon. Duane Reade, Walgreens and Trader Joe’s and Home Depot all seem like the types of stores that would greatly benefit from this type of line-free experience. Is it really necessary to build out separate brick-and-mortar stores from scratch, or can this be done using existing packaging and information contained within the barcodes of these goods? Can there be one universal application that allows consumers to log payments with a variety of retailers, not just Amazon? I don’t know the answers, but it’s certainly a problem worth exploring… I wrote this whole post while standing on line at Whole Foods.