Can Amazon Spread Its Cashierless 'Just Walk Out' Technology to Other Stores? (cnbc.com) 55
Amazon launched "cashierless checkout" stores In 2018, reports CNBC — but by 2020 it was licensing the "Just Walk Out" technology to other stores in airports, hospitals, and stadiums.
In April, Amazon announced it was removing cashierless checkout from its U.S. Fresh stores and Whole Foods locations... In place of Just Walk Out, which typically requires ceiling-mounted cameras, shelf sensors and gated entry points, Amazon Fresh stores and Whole Foods supermarkets will feature Dash Carts. The carts track and tally up items as shoppers place them in bags, enabling people to skip the checkout line. Amazon continues to use Just Walk Out in its grab-and-go marts and UK Fresh stores...
While it's no longer featuring Just Walk Out as prominently in its own stores, Amazon says it has inked deals with a growing list of customers. More than 200 third-party stores have paid Amazon to install the cashierless system. The company expects to double the number of third-party Just Walk Out stores this year, Jon Jenkins, who previously served as vice president of Amazon's Just Walk Out technology, said in a recent interview... Amazon's "primary focus" is selling the technology to third-party businesses and deploying it in small to medium-sized store formats, where the system "tends to generate a little better [return on investment]," Jenkins said...
At one Just Walk Out store, inside Seattle's Lumen Field, home to the NFL's Seahawks, the company said it boosted sales by 112% last season, with 85% more transactions during the course of a game.
Two interesting points from the article:
While it's no longer featuring Just Walk Out as prominently in its own stores, Amazon says it has inked deals with a growing list of customers. More than 200 third-party stores have paid Amazon to install the cashierless system. The company expects to double the number of third-party Just Walk Out stores this year, Jon Jenkins, who previously served as vice president of Amazon's Just Walk Out technology, said in a recent interview... Amazon's "primary focus" is selling the technology to third-party businesses and deploying it in small to medium-sized store formats, where the system "tends to generate a little better [return on investment]," Jenkins said...
At one Just Walk Out store, inside Seattle's Lumen Field, home to the NFL's Seahawks, the company said it boosted sales by 112% last season, with 85% more transactions during the course of a game.
Two interesting points from the article:
- "Earlier this year, Amazon also began selling its connected grocery carts to third parties."
- "With Just Walk Out, Amazon faces the challenge of convincing retailers that they can trust one of their biggest competitors with handling valuable shopper data..."
Can't even keep it in their own (Score:5, Informative)
They can't even keep it in their own store. Our local Amazon Fresh had the "walk out" corridor for a few years. Never seen a single person use it.
They finally replaced most of it with standard self-checkout area. Left a narrow barely marked lane for the "just walk out" customers.
Ironically, I saw a person trying to use it (literally the first time I saw anyone) just a week ago. Something didn't work right, so he ended up stuck there for an extended period of time, while an associate manually scanned all his products. I am sure he won't make that mistake again.
(P.S. I never buy anything at Amazon Fresh, since it is severely overpriced compared to the exact same products at WM - but it's a convenient drop off for Amazon returns, so I am there fairly often)
Re:Can't even keep it in their own (Score:4, Interesting)
Only time I've ever been to Amazon Fresh was to return something to Amazon. I looked at the prices while I was there -- wow, what a joke. Go down to the nearby Ralph's (Kroger) stuff is a lot more reasonably priced (for California standards anyways -- this state hits you in the wallet any way it can, rich and poor alike.) To me, that, and Whole Foods, are just that place you go to when you need to return (for Apple fans: trigger warning) cheap [youtube.com] shit [youtube.com] to Amazon.
Just Steal Out (Score:2)
Amazon renamed the technology. It's now called "Just Steal Out"
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer scan-as-you-shop. That way you can see exactly how much you are spending as you go around, and also check that offers are applying and that goods are correctly priced before you get to the self checkout.
You need a loyalty card to use it, but mine is registered to "Mr. Anon Ymous".
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Remember when we learned Indian workers are used (Score:5, Informative)
and not AI, for most stores? Some tech!
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-rep... [gizmodo.com]
Mildly related
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blo... [mataroa.blog]
Re: (Score:3)
That seems like simple optimism, the sort of thing that was meant to be temporary until the shopkeeper AI is properly trained. There's no way having an army of contractors reviewing purchases was the intended final outcome.
Re:Remember when we learned Indian workers are use (Score:4, Informative)
I was working in the AWS SOC in Seattle when they opened their first Just Walk Out store, the first Amazon Go store in their South Lake Union campus. Of course working in Security several of my co-workers decided to test how good it was. (Management obviously knew this was going to happen.) We were quite surprised, in two weeks working alone or together they never managed to get anything without paying and were never charged for something they hadn't purchased.
Having said that, the Go stores are small, and have a limited amount of stock. Just Walk Out works very well in this situation. The only way to see if it scaled up to a grocery store size was to try it. The first Amazon Fresh store opened in Bellevue, just down the hill from my house, and I was a regular customer there. The human observers were to sanity-check the AI, to see how well it could handle the massive increase in volume. From what I was able to follow before I retired it worked fairly well, they wouldn't lose money using it, **BUT** it was not reliable enough to keep customers happy. When I left they were working on improving it, they must not have been able to. It's too bad, I could go in, swipe my hand, toss half a dozen things in my bag, swipe my hand, and leave in less time than it takes to just stand in line for the self-checkout at the QFC in the next block. Hardware and software continue to improve exponentially of course, I'm quite sure it will be back again soon.
Still need staff in the stores anyway (Score:2)
I went to one of these stores in an airport recently. Cameras all over. And they had to still have two people on staff to explain to people how it worked as they walked in.
Meanwhile a similar store farther down the concourse just had one lady standing at the cash register and nobody in India watching you.
1998 Called... (Score:3)
...they want their concept back [youtube.com].
The idea seems good on paper, and maybe the real helpfulness here is moving from barcodes to RFIDs, but the fact that we're only hitting test deployments in areas with extremely limited number of SKUs reflect the fact that this sort of tech is extremely difficult to scale, and requires lots of cooperation from lots of people simultaneously, and has the potential to introduce liability.
A retailer needs to replenish their shampoo, but they can't order from the palettes of stuff their distributor has, because they need the SKU with the RFID packaging, which they're currently out of. The manufacturer only makes two shampoo varieties with RFID packaging, but makes 30 with standard barcodes, which competitors can readily sell. Of course, Amazon is going to want their pound of flesh in exchange for the tech, meaning that retailers have yet another middleman to pay, plus Amazon gets the data from products that other people sell.
Ultimately, Amazon's first party stores that sell Amazon Basics products that can be made this way, are about the best way to bootstrap the deployments...but like the replenish buttons and Alexa before it, making the wheels too greasy has a propensity to make messes.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh my god I remember this concept at the time and reading about it in the magazines. Seemed so cool and futuristic but instead of that we get to scan our own barcodes ourselves.
Interestingly Walmart is still trying to push it, I believe they have used RFID for their logistics operations for some time now but they had an "RFID Mandate"
Benefits, Challenges, and Tips for Adapting to Walmart’s RFID Mandate [inflowinventory.com]
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RFID is used, but the problem is the tags still aren't as cheap as printing a barcode. Barcodes are popular because you only need to reserve about an inch and a half square box on your packaging for the barcode which is then printed using standard printing techniques.
RFID chips were supposed to be down in the cent and sub-cent range to compete to compete, but it still cost a ton more money than a barcode. And we're still not there yet - despite RFID chips looking a lot like anti-theft tags, even those are s
It was fake (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They did it to sanity check the recognition process, it worked fine in the smaller Go stores and they needed to see if it scaled up. Turns out it doesn't, quite. Comes close, but customers wouldn't be satisfied with seeing a bill that was "close" to accurate. If it had worked the Indian contractors would have been laid off and they would have rolled it out everywhere.
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If it had worked the Indian contractors would have been laid off
So, Rajiv, how are we doing with the Amazon project?
Well, boss. Almost there. Almost. Just gonna take a couple of months more.
Okay. Talk to you then.
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The Indian contractors weren't programming the system, they were the guys looking at the cameras to see how close it was coming. IIRC most of the programming was done in Virginia and Seattle.
scam anyway (Score:3)
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This was not my experience. I went to a place near Seattle several times (which is now closed). I did preset the credit card into my Amazon account. Then you enter the store, and you do have to scan something to enter the building, and then that's it. You walk in, grab your stuff, and you leave out the exit door.
In particular, there was no shopping cart, nothing pointing out sales, no scanning.
This was available during the early stages of the pandemic (when nobody was even fully sure what to do) and tha
Re: scam anyway (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There were some things they told you. I remember I'm not supposed to pick something up, hand it to somebody else, and let that other person put it back on the shelf, because it'll confuse the software.
A more likely explanation is it confused the Indian remote workers who were watching you and tallying your purchases [gizmodo.com].
Re: scam anyway (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You forgot the last part, where Amazon emails you a receipt for what you bought, and you go down the receipt in the email to see how close their invoice got to the actual list of items that you walked out with.
In my experience, there is usually at least one mistake and often more... if the mistake isn't in your favor, you can reply to the email and Amazon will promptly refund you the appropriate amount of money to "fix" the mistake, which is nice -- but I can see how that might lead to a lot of people repor
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I found one mistake, I picked up two boxes of pasta and got charged for one. On the other hand the price on the shelf always matched the price I was charged, which is not the case when shopping any of the other large retailers.
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Not true at my local Amazon Fresh store--that one really was "just walk out" after scanning my card going in and walking out.
It took a few hours to get my receipt and there was a ghost item or a missed item more than a few times but that was solved quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
You saw the wrong one. Amazon has experimented with multiple different implementations. The one you experienced is actually the normal process for many European supermarkets, but Amazon definitely has one where you don't scan anything either, just grab an item and walk out. They also aren't the only ones playing with this. Aldi (big European supermarket chain) has a concept store which was the same thing. You walk in and the only thing you scan is your app on the turnstiles. The rest is all taken care of by
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I went to an Amazon Fresh just to try it out. All it amounts to is you take the self checkout with you, built into the cart. You still scan the items yourself. The "checkout lane" just tells the self checkout software in the cart to initiate the credit card transaction (you have to enter your card before you start shopping). Not at all the whiz-bang futuristic wow the marketing people want you to believe. It is mildly more convenient because you can see prices, search for items, and it points out sales as you walk down the aisle. All in all, meh.
My local supermarket has a "scan as you shop" with a couple of dozen handsets at the front of the store, I never see more than a few missing. They started out with 10 tills for scan as you shop, then cut it down to 6 to install more self scan, now it's down to 4 and there are still lines for the self service checkouts at busy times.
I think the biggest turn off are the complete wankers who use the system pontificating about how much time they're saving. Its not actually saving much time as most of your ti
So instead of scanning everything at the end... (Score:2)
With the Dash Carts, you scan each item as you put it into the cart? I'm not sure I see any real time savings there... and it might even take more time. Especially if you have to rearrange stuff as you're shopping (you don't want to put heavy cans on top of your bread, for instance).
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That's why I visit the can aisle first. Frozen goods are last.
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Of course, such plans can go awry when you have family member texting you "oh, could you also get ..." while you're mid-shopping-trip at the grocery store - which is a situation I find myself in fairly often.
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How does the dash cart make shopping order any more important than normal shopping?
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Since there's no place to formally checkout, I assume people are bagging the items as they put them into their cart.
With a "traditional" grocery shopping trip, bagging doesn't happen until you're at the checkout - meaning everything you bought is present at that time and you can logically organize stuff as you load it into your bags. With the "Just Walk Out" scenario, the bag loading would be more of a ongoing process - which is the situation I was referring to in my previous post.
But even if you manage to
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Since there's no place to formally checkout, I assume people are bagging the items as they put them into their cart.
This is California. Bags are a tool created by big petroleum to sell more oil and destroy the planet. :-D
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I see, I would think that could be mostly if not entirely mitigated by using multiple bags when shopping (which seems normal).
Just place in the appropriate bags.
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Because the benefit of it is you bag as you go. That is the real timesaver.
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I'm not sure I see any real time savings there... and it might even take more time.
I live somewhere where scan as you go is the normal. I now refuse to shop at places which don't offer this. It is a huge timesaver. If you're rearranging stuff, then fix your shopping habit, it's only 10m to walk from the can isle to the bread isle, pick order which suits your needs.
this is not doom-and-gloom (Score:2)
separating general grocery store sales from venue concessions seems like a good move. stores, with the large number of SKUs, tend to have slow self-checkout and are not a good fit for this technology. the limited inventory for venue concessions like airports and amphitheaters on the other hand, make sense.
didn't it come out (Score:2)
that the way it worked was that there were a large number of people monitoring the cameras in a "call" center
I seem to recall that anyway
A lot of stores around here have "Just walk out" (Score:2)
It's an old technology called shoplifting. The local DA fully supports it, which is why she's being recalled.
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It's an old technology called shoplifting. The local DA fully supports it, which is why she's being recalled.
Amazon Go [youtube.com]
Big box stores and pharmas can't even stop basic (Score:2)
Is this supposed to be a joke? (Score:1)
Amazon was reportedly using Indian labor.. There was no AI in their Walk Out system...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2024/04/04/amazon-just-walk-out-indian-workers/73204975007/
Re: (Score:2)
The Indian contractors were to check the recognition system, it worked fine at the small scale of the Amazon Go stores and they needed to see if it scaled up to a grocery store scale. Turns out it doesn't, yet. Hardware and software continue to improve by leaps and bounds, I expect to see it come back again in a couple of years. They'll roll it out, hire another batch of Indian contractors to check to see if it works again, and if it does you'll quickly see it arriving Kroger and the other grocery chains
Fact Check - This is 1000 people watching cameras (Score:1)
I thought this was common knowledge at this point, but I guess not. The "technology" isn't AI or Computer Vision at all. It's 1000s of people sitting in India watching video screens tracking people around stores! This was called out back in April 2024.
I can't believe that people want to support this type of technology -- it's just pinning low-cost workers in other countries to a screen, how terrible.
Title : "Amazon's AI Stores Seemed Too Magical. And They Were.
The 1,000 contractors in India working on th
Re: (Score:2)
So you obviously did not read the comments higher in the thread, where I repeatedly pointed out that the humans were there to sanity-check the recognition system. Just Walk Out works fine in fully automatic mode in smaller stores like their Amazon Go shops. It turns out that it doesn't scale to the size of a grocery store yet. Too much randomness with that many SKUs and watching that many people at a time, while it mostly worked customers were not going to be happy with a receipt that was "mostly" correc
Nope! (Score:1)
We'e seen it.
If given the option to steal...AHEM...PREVENT SHRINK...people WILL.
Anyone trying to justify their way to this are delusional.
Given this, it just becomes a contest who can be more clever, bull-headed and stupid about it.
They're gonna burn money trying to "prevent" it and the thieves will keep looking for a way to get around it.
There is NO "winning" proposition to this.
NYC has this "technology" (Score:1)
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This has been a tactic of the Roma for over a century, honestly I'm surprised it took this long for the idea to spread.
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Not really, when the first Amazon Go store opened near my office several of my co-workers spent two weeks trying to game the system with absolutely no luck. We were all quite impressed. Unfortunately it doesn't scale to a full grocery store yet.
Walmart (Score:1)
Tried it, hated it (Score:2)
I tried one of Amazon's Just Walk Out stores in an airport a couple of years ago. I didn't like it at all. I had no piece of paper confirming that what I thought I bought, is what I actually bought, or what the price was that I paid for it. Maybe some people are more trusting than I am.