Shoppers check out sale items while waiting in line for the opening of a new Amazon Fresh store on E. Colorado Blvd., Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, in Pasadena, California.
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Amazon The company confirmed it is eliminating cashierless checkout systems at U.S. grocery stores, marking the latest change in its grocery strategy.
The company will not install the system, called Just Walk Out, in existing Fresh stores or in new stores scheduled to open later this year. Instead, it will rely more on Dash Carts, which track and inventory items as shoppers put them in their carts, allowing people to skip checkout lines.
“We spent a lot of time last year redesigning some Amazon Fresh stores to deliver a better overall shopping experience and more value, convenience and selection – and so far we’ve seen positive results with an increase in customers. Shopping satisfaction scores and purchases increased,” Amazon spokesperson Carly Golden said in a statement.
Golden added: “We’ve also heard from customers that while they enjoy the benefits of Just Walk Out without queuing at the checkout, they also want to be able to easily find nearby products and deals, view their receipts as they shop, and know how to do it. They save a lot of money shopping throughout the store.”
information It was reported earlier that Amazon decided to cancel the “Just Walk Out” activity at some grocery stores.
Amazon’s Go convenience stores will continue to use Just Walk Out technology, and smaller Fresh stores in the UK will continue to license cashierless systems to third parties.
In 2018, Amazon debuted cashierless technology at a convenience store on its Seattle campus. The system relies on a series of cameras and sensors placed throughout the store to monitor what shoppers carry with them, automatically charging them as they leave. It’s a pet project of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who sees it as a way for the company to differentiate itself in the grocery market and “escape the worst problems of brick-and-mortar retail.”
“No one likes waiting in line,” then-CEO Bezos wrote on his blog. 2018 Letter to Shareholders. “Instead, we imagined a store where you could walk in, pick up what you wanted, and leave.”
Since then, Amazon’s strategy around “Just Walk Out” has shifted. The company began selling the system to food outlets and retail stores at airports and stadiums in 2020, and more recently to hospitals. The unit was also moved out of Amazon’s retail group and folded into its cloud computing unit.
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