Amazon opens checkout-free grocery store in Seattle – Updated
By Canadian Packaging staff
Automation General Amazon Amazon Go Future of retail shopping Just Walk Out technologyAmazon Go offers Just Walk Out technology to help grocery customers save time by avoiding checkout lines.
If you were amazed by cashier-free checkout kiosks at the grocery store, Amazon’s new Just Walk Out technology is going to blow your mind.
Featuring machine learning, computer vision and AI., Amazon Go is the future made real.
Amazon has opened its first Amazon Go – a retail grocery store that adds products the customer is buying to a digital shopping list that will allow them to walk out of the building without having to wait for a cashier or stand in line. Just shop, and go.
Amazon Go currently has one store open, at 2131 7th Ave, Seattle, WA, which also happens to be an Amazon office.
The 1,800-square-foot facility was first opened this past December as a beta test site for Amazon employees, but has opened up to the general public as of January 22, 2018.
Open Monday-Friday, 7AM-9PM, Amazon Go offers ready-to-eat products (breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks), and offers such staples as bread and milk, artisan cheeses and locally-made chocolates, as well as carbonated beverages, chips, ketchup, etc.
The phone (and app) is placed over the scanner at the entrance of Amazon Go – it takes less than a second. Now go shop.
And all you need is an app.
And an Amazon account. That has money in it. Or a credit card attached.
And a recent-generation iPhone or Android phone
The free Amazon Go app is available on the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore.
Upon arrival at the store, you must pass through a turnstile, of sorts, that you allow it to scan your app.
That’s it.
You can put your phone away and go shopping.
There aren’t any shopping carts, and you bring your own bags, but as you pick a product from the shelf, the product total is added to your digital; checkout cart.
If you don’t want the product you just took, place it back where you got it and the product is removed from your digital checkout.
When you are done shopping, you leave the store. 
The app has calculated your total, and immediately charges your Amazon account.
The store does have staff at the store, but only the “associates” who prepare the meals in the kitchen, but are also available to help customers, should one need a recommendation.
Amazon has plans to open up hundreds more of the Amazon Go stores over the next decade.
As of now, Amazon Go appears to a victim of its own popularity, as a long line forms just to get in:
The irony isn't lost on people seeing lines at the Amazon Go store
For more information, click HERE.
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