Steal Your Lunch–Unboxing Amazon Go
I have a love affair with one product at Amazon Go, the Tofu Banh Mi. Despite my fretful experience shopping at the cashier-less store, I always go back for the delicious, soft bun meets jalapeño and tofu goodness.
My first experience with San Francisco’s Amazon Go store was opening day October 2018. As I approached, several orange clad workers appeared to be blocking the entrance. Concerned that I had just crashed a Caltrans emergency, I slowed my roll. The orange-shirts were Amazon Go employees providing assistance to anyone attempting to enter the store sans app. To enter, you need to scan a QR code on your phone via the Amazon Go app. The app is the key to convenience store heaven. Your standard Amazon app will not do. Neither will the Whole Foods Amazon Prime shopper app. On return trips to the store, the door blockers reduced their orange numbers to just one. Given all other features of the store are completely automated, I would think there would be a non-human alternative to this experience as well.
Once in-store, I found a nice variety of grab-n-go breakfast and lunch options, organic staples, and meal kits for busy humans who like to make their own dinners, provided it is precut and portioned for them. I always head straight to the back for my Tofu Banh Mi, available in full and half sizes. On my first trip to the store, I was a less focused, picking up items, carrying them around a bit before changing my mind and putting them back. A lingering fear remained: “Would I be charged for the items I took on a field trip around the rest of the store?”
This lack of transparency on how the operation works can lead to a lot of trepidation whilst shopping at the cashier-less store front. On opening day, a fellow shopper dropped a salad, the contents of which exploded onto the floor. Several of us, including Amazon Go employees, gathered around and wondered aloud whether the dropper would be charged. A manager descended and reassured the shopper they would not, in fact, have to pay for the damaged salad. We all had lingering doubts that this was the truth.
I frantically checked and rechecked the app during my first experience to see if the little bag icon would reflect the items I was carrying on me at any given moment. It did not. The bag icon is a floating action button for purchasing bags at the store and not some sort of virtual shopping cart/bag. Why Amazon cannot also track a person taking a bag automatically, I do not know. Despite having visit the store multiple times, this icon still confuses me. Amazon literature reports that the items you carry in the store are tracked via a “virtual cart.” This cart is not consumer facing “virtually” anywhere. You cannot see it in app to know if the store is tracking your goods properly. Shopping like this takes a tremendous amount of faith that when you leave the store, your checker, the app, will charge you correctly.
Exiting the store, I always grab an Amazon Go salted almond, dark chocolate bar. These candy bars are cheap, pretty good and are wrapped in Amazon Go’s signature bright orange. The first time I left the store, I double-checked with an orange shirt that I could indeed just walk out. He reassured me, gesturing to the exit with glee, just go.
I went. I was nervous that the store would charge me for the items I carried around and put back. I kept checking the app as I walked away from the store which disturbingly reported to be “calculating receipt” for 10 minutes. After I got five blocks away, a bit further than the point that I might turn back, my receipt showed up. I was charged correctly.
Subsequent trips to the store have seen this receipt-to-phone process to be a bit shorter, say five minutes or two blocks from the store. The entire time the app reports to be calculating your receipt. The lack of feedback is disconcerting. With all of that magic in the store, I would expect this receipt to come a heck of a lot sooner. Amazon claims their technology works with: “computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning” and receipts will be delivered “a little while later” after exiting the store. The delay is built into the experience, but why it takes so long confounds me. I’ve never been mischarged, so perhaps Amazon is banking on my faith in the brand and those delicious Tofu Banh Mi.
