24hr cashier-free store in real life
When Amazon Go is still in beta phase, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Chinese tech giants already launched their 24hr cashier-free stores in major cities.
When I left the U.S., I was still using cards to pay for everything. After coming back to my hometown, Guangzhou, China, I realize that I can live without my wallet for couple days but I can not leave my phone for 1 sec.
Mobile payment changes a lot of things. When you pay for something with just a few touch on your phone, it makes the existence of cashier questionable. Walmart in the U.S. already self-check machine to let people scan and pay on their own, without waiting the long line of cashier.
The gap between idea and execution is getting shorter and shorter these days, especially for the tech giants with enormous resource to test out ideas. When Amazon Go is still in beta phase, Chinese tech giants already start the game. A few 24hr cashier-free stores are opened in major cities.
It is lucky to have one opened in my hometown so I have the chance to see what this “labor-free” idea means in real life. I have read so many tech articles talking about AI, self-drive, and other technology that emphasizing the absence of labor in the future. What does it EXACTLY mean labor-free in real life and how does it affect us as consumer and labor force at the same time? With curiosity, I visited the “Future convenient store” in Guangzhou, China.
It was a tiny convenient store hidden in an office building. I will show you the shopping experiment in the following 4 steps:
- Open the door: scan the QR code (in Wechat) on the door and it will automatically open. The QR code will direct you to a “mini-program”. For those who are not familiar with “mini-program”, it’s app within the Wechat platform, just like how the Apple or Android’s APPs work but it’s integrated in Wechat. If you want to know more about the “mini-program”, you can read this TechCrunch article.
This “mini-program” called Future Convenient Store. It will recognize your Wechat account.

2. Browsing
It is a small store, probably the size of a single room (full size bed can fit in). Except the fact that you are the only human in the store, it is just the same as any other convenient store in the city. You can find small packages of snacks, personal care, drinks in here.


3. Pick what you want
Each item in the store all has a “mini program” code on it. This “mini program” code is also an invention by Wechat. Since the check out process for this type of store is different from traditional store, the old bar code won’t work in this circumstance.

4. Check out & leave
When you pick what you want, then you can walk back to the door where the sensors are. Open the “mini program” on your Wechat, it will show the items that you want to buy. You just hit the “pay & check out” button and pay with your Wechat wallet. The door will open and you are good to go!

The shopping experience is quite simple and easy for a twenty-some person like me. However, I noticed one flaw in the final step, checking out. If I just want to have a look and not intend to buy anything from the store, when I try to leave, my “mini-program” will always show other people’s items. My guess is that the designer or the tech people use whether the item leaves the shelf as an indicator of purchase. It does not track down what each person is going to buy. It might not be a big problem with low traffic to the store at this moment, but if the stores become popular, it will become a problem.
As a consumer, buying snacks, drinks or emergency personal care from here is very convenient. However, if there are too many people in the store, the checking out process is still a pain. Looking at it from a bigger picture, the store is not completely “labor-free”. There is still people available for help when you have problems.
It was cool to check it out in real life and realize that there is not much glamour about it. The young generation lives in a fast and diverse environment and they are used to it. Maybe after several years, the new borns will never know what supermarket is.
