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How Amazon has taken one step back and two steps forward with its Just Walk Out technology
Amazon opened its first Go stores in December 2016, moving from two decades of online retail to neighborhood convenience shops. Since then it has developed the model, building on its experience and developing new technologies along the way.
Those first stores were trialled in closed beta using its employees, and then in the open, using its Just Walk Out technology consisting of an intensive sensorization of the establishment with many cameras, weight sensors on the shelves, etc. to offer a shopping experience free of any interference: customers simply took what they wanted from the shelves, put it in their shopping bags and left.
Amazon’s idea was, as always, to turn its model into a platform and offer it to other retailers. However, problems arose when it tried scaling up the model to larger stores, which led the company to develop another model based on the Amazon Dash Cart, more efficient in the case of large weekly or monthly purchases, which then replaced the Just Walk Out model it had used in its Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods supermarkets.
Amazon has continued licensing its Just Walk Out technology to other retailers, now emphasizing its good results for small stores with a limited number of items. At its Lumen Stadium flagship store…
