Amazon Go Insights

Here is a collection of some of the other reviews that the new Amazon Go format is getting from various media outlets.

• Bloomberg emphasized the fact that while defined as a convenience store, Amazon Go has a more sophisticated and nuanced approach to cuisine: “You won’t find a squeaking hot dog rotisserie in Amazon.com Inc.’s cashier-less convenience store. Instead, you’ll see Mediterranean lamb sandwiches, fresh salads and to-go containers of cubed pineapple and melon … cashier. The inventory caters to health-conscious, affluent millennials rushing to their next meeting and could leave the stoner-slacker crowd searching aimlessly for the machine that barfs out chili and cheese with the push of a button.”

• The Wall Street Journal writes that “The Go experiment shows how Amazon is trying to transform shopping in physical stores after decades of pioneering retail online. Since 2015, the company also has added more than a dozen Amazon Books stores, which encourage customers to pull out their phones to scan covers for prices. In August, Amazon completed a $13.5 billion deal to buy grocery chain Whole Foods, adding 470 brick-and-mortar stores to its portfolio overnight”

The Journal goes on: “Former Amazon executives say it likely would be difficult to scale the system to track people in a bigger store, and that it could take years to make it work in a larger store footprint. Still, they say it may make sense one day for Amazon to try to implement the technology more widely—either via additional Go stores or even in Whole Foods.”

• The New York Times looked at the impact on labor: “There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads. For now, Amazon says its technology simply changes the role of employees — the same way it describes the impact of automation on its warehouse workers. Those tasks include restocking shelves and helping customers troubleshoot any technical problems. Store employees mill about ready to help customers find items, and there is a kitchen next door with chefs preparing meals for sale in the store.”

• The Seattle Times builds on the labor question, noting that the format has “sparked speculation that Amazon could use its high-tech concept as a beachhead to expand into convenience stores or perhaps other categories of physical retail. It was also criticized by grocery-store workers’ unions, which feared an effort to automate the work done by cashiers, the second-most-common job in the U.S. Amazon has said the goal isn’t to make retail employees redundant, but to offer convenience you can’t get from a sometimes-crowded deli or corner store.”

• USA Today writes that “in the 100 years since the first modern supermarket was opened, no one has ever solved the problem of long lines at checkout.” This “high-tech approach, crafted by the company that's most visibly changed how Americans shop in recent years, suggested grocery shopping was on the cusp of its biggest breakthrough since bar codes … If it succeeds, it stands to live up to those early expectations of a revolution in grocery shopping. The ability to walk into a store, grab what you want and simply walk out is remarkably freeing, though it can leave a slight nagging feeling that you've just shoplifted — until you check the app to make sure you've been charged.”

The issue of shoplifting was addressed in several other stories.

• The New York Times writes: “Most people who spend any time in a supermarket understand how vexing the checkout process can be, with clogged lines for cashiers and customers who fumble with self-checkout kiosks. At Amazon Go, checking out feels like — there’s no other way to put it — shoplifting. It is only a few minutes after walking out of the store, when Amazon sends an electronic receipt for purchases, that the feeling goes away.

“Actual shoplifting is not easy at Amazon Go. With permission from Amazon, I tried to trick the store’s camera system by wrapping a shopping bag around a $4.35 four-pack of vanilla soda while it was still on a shelf, tucking it under my arm and walking out of the store. Amazon charged me for it.”

• MIT Technology Review provides some broader context: “Amazon is not the only company working on checkout-free shopping—Stockholm-based Wheelys has tested an autonomous store in China, while a Silicon Valley startup called Standard Cognition is working on its own version of cashier-free checkout. But it is by far the most prominent company to try it. And its clout as a retailer on and off the Web, plus its ability to build something as complicated as a checkout-free store from start to finish with its own tools and businesses (beyond Whole Foods, its Amazon Web Services is available to host all the data this kind of service requires), makes it the most likely to succeed in the near future.”

• GeekWire addresses some of the same issues: “Amazon’s experiment is likely to attract people comfortable giving up some privacy to experience something new. But if this is the future of physical retail, what does the company say to people who are uneasy about having their activities in the real world tracked so closely by a computer system?”

The answer to that question: “The reality is, with loyalty programs and in-store accounts, purchases are already being tracked at many grocery stores, and of course security cameras are already ubiquitous in stores and other public places. But Amazon Go takes that to a new level by tying all of it together,” GeekWireconcludes.

• Re/code writes that “the store’s real reason for being is to test what could be a breakthrough Amazon hypothesis: that by adding even more convenience to the convenience store model — with the help of a healthy dose of technology — Amazon might be able to carve out a loyal customer base outside of its website and inside a physical store where the vast majority of food and grocery shopping still occurs.

“While waiting on line for a few minutes might not sound like an annoyance, the hope is that once customers experience the faster option of Amazon Go, their expectations of a convenience store visit will change.

Looking ahead, you can bet that Amazon didn’t spend five years building this technology to only use it in one store … Of course, you shouldn’t think about a new Amazon technology platform without considering the possibility that Amazon may eventually make it available to other businesses for a healthy fee.”

• The Seattle Times writes: “Amazon likely isn’t aiming for a Go store on every street corner. The company’s internal projections, according to someone familiar with the early stages of Amazon’s plans, determined that a store needed thousands of office workers within a few-block radius to make the investment worthwhile.”

• The TechCrunch writer is skeptical: “On the philosophical side, I’m troubled … a convenience store you just walk out of is a friendly mask on the face of a highly controversial application of technology: ubiquitous personal surveillance.

“It’s a bit overkill, I think, to replace a checker or self-checkout stand with a hundred cameras that unblinkingly record every tiny movement. What’s to gain? 20 or 30 seconds of your time back? Lack of convenience has hardly been a complaint for this market — it’s right there in the name: ‘convenience store.’

“Like so many ways companies are applying tech today, this seems to me an immense amount of ingenuity and resources being used to “solve” something that few people care about and fewer still consider a problem. As a technical achievement it’s remarkable, but then again, so is a robotic dog … whether anyone will find it to be anything more than a novelty is yet to be seen.”

• And, USA Today writes: “For Amazon, the space offers an unparalleled chance to gather customer data about likes, dislikes and even what people pick up and then put back, all which can be crunched and turned into future stocking decisions. For the public, at least at first, Amazon Go could well become another ‘must-see’ for those visiting Seattle, along with riding the monorail and a trip to the Pike Place Market.”