Amazon GO- The Legal Shoplifting India Needs
It is 2019, the world has already warmed up to the idea of building up a human settlement on the moon yet has not been able to say goodbye to brick and mortar stores. Ask any Indian to walk into a Big-Bazaar or a D-Mart store on a Wednesday or a weekend and they would only describe it as a nightmare.
Being the fifth largest preferred retail destination globally and having one of the highest per capita retail store availability, India’s retail sector is burgeoning with retail development taking place not just in metropolitan cities but also in Tier -II and Tier — III cities. This sector accounts for 10% of the country’s GDP and around 8% of the employment. The Indian retail industry has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries after India took retail online. This lead to an influx of healthy competition among new and existing companies.
However, the need for physical stores still persists. People still heavily rely on going to the nearest supermarket to buy something that is needed immediately even with the online retail soaring. And thus, a way out of this poor crowd management and long queues is welcomed, bringing us to the cashier-less technology.
With ambitious plans of opening 20,000+ stores in the coming days, Amazon Go developed the “Just Walk in” technology which is a combination of artificial intelligence, computer vision and data pulled from multiple sensors that ensures customers have a hassle free experience.
The stores are partly automated, with customers able to purchase products without being checked out by a cashier or using a self-checkout station. The flagship store has prepared foods, meal kits, limited groceries, and liquor available for purchase.
“Since opening, we’ve been thrilled to hear many customers refer to their shopping experience as magical,” Bezos wrote. “What makes the magic possible is a custom-built combination of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, which come together to create Just Walk Out shopping.”
What is Amazon Go? Magic or Science?
Simply put, from the time the buyer enters the store to the time he checks out, cameras take photos of various actions. It fundamentally captures photos of when they enter, what items do they pick or put back on the shelf. This data along with facial recognition and other user information like height, weight, user bio-metrics, purchase history, is being reportedly used to sketch the final iteration of these stores. Lets deep dive into each of the components to understand the working of this model.
Artificial intelligence plays an important role in the design of this system. The cameras are trained to identify the users and activities carried out inside the store with the items on display. According to filings, a shopper’s past purchase history may also be used to help identify an item when it is picked up. Deep learning is also used to make sure that the computer learns and makes informed decisions with each iteration or purchase.
Computer vision and data collected from sensors work in amalgamation to determine if a person has picked up an item or kept it back.This may also be underlined with Trigger switches where inventory tracking mechanism would trigger a “item lifted” stage.
What if India had this?
This technology works in sync to increase efficiency of not just the machines but also of us humans by truly living up to the phrase “Time is money” which is required in India the most.
With e-commerce reaching its peak, offline markets for retail have still not disappeared. People still prefer shopping in local shops and supermarkets. Shahrukh Khan may claim to provide the farm-fresh produce with Big-Basket but he cannot promise to ship it in a jiffy. So you choose the other alternative, run to the closest supermarket grab what you need and then wait in the queue for what seems like an eternity.
Why it is needed?
- In India, even after E-commerce took about 5% of the retail industry stake, people still believe in offline stores and their experience with it. This makes the technology feasible and worth exploring not only for grocery stores but for different retail stores including kirana stores with lesser variety and footfall.
- The time management and efficiency required during the crucial times like weekends or festive seasons can be attained with its help.
- Companies will have easier and fast report generation which can help them reduce their time on things that can be automated
- “Startups in this space need a high level of automation, from putting an order together to getting it delivered, to be able to succeed at this business,” says Koushik Mandal, a former online grocery entrepreneur. Mandal founded the portal Shop Veg in 2011, but shut it down after he failed to raise funding.
- Besides logistics, there are other hurdles. Ravi Kiran, co-founder of VentureNursery, a startup accelerator that incubated Shop Veg, says there are multiple challenges.
“We realised that while startups in the space think that they are providing customers with convenience, most people are much more comfortable with actually looking at the products they are buying when it comes to groceries.”
Challenges that may hinder the growth of this technology
- India is a labor based country because of the gap in wages as well as high density of population, so the set-up and the maintenance of this technology will be high if compared to the labor cost required.
- When a group arrives in a shop, there are usually multiple people picking up items to put in one single cart. The technology is limited to track only one person per cart. So either only one person can shop or every person needs to have an amazon account.
- The model training for object detection with pattern detection will be pretty high in comparison with other countries as the detail level is high and unique for India because of high population density.
The fear that it would leave a lot of unskilled labor jobless is understandable but the flip side to it would be that skilled labor would increase as more manpower would be required to maintain the database and develop the existing technology. Consequently, the country should be ready to embrace the new and adapt with times to allow technological and economic growth.
