Perhaps the strangest thing about visiting an Amazon Go store is its “Just Walk Out” technology. You scan your QR code in the Amazon Go app to get in, and, after shopping around, you take the stuff you want to buy and just leave.
This technology is what makes Amazon Go stores unique, but soon we may see it in all sorts of retail locations.
Amazon is planning on selling its “Just Walk Out” technology to other retailers. Reuters reported the news on Monday, and it was later confirmed to Built In. The company also just launched a website where retailers could learn more about this technology and its application.
The technology changes the checkout process by completely removing cashiers from the shopping experience. Instead, the Amazon Go stores use computer vision to track what you pick up and leave with, and then charge your Amazon account. The benefit of this, according to the company, is a faster checkout experience.
“Do customers like standing in lines?” Dilip Kumar, Amazon's VP of physical retail and technology, told Reuters. “This has pretty broad applicability across store sizes, across industries, because it fundamentally tackles a problem of how do you get convenience in physical locations, especially when people are hard-pressed for time.”
The tech giant already has several Amazon Go convenience stores across the country, and the company also recently opened its first Amazon Go grocery store in Seattle. The Amazon Go grocery store is a fully stocked 10,400-square-foot grocery store with 5,000 products that uses the “Just Walk Out” technology. If a store with that scale is able to use this technology effectively, who knows what type of retailers could be next.
