Amazon Goes Offline With Bricks-And-Mortar Grocery Chain; Envisions Opening 2,000 Stores

After launching Amazon Fresh, an online food delivery service, in numerous cities just a few years ago, Amazon has now decided it has to go “offline” to capture incremental share of the grocery market. As such, the company today revealed its first brick-and-mortar small-format grocery store, Amazon Go, one of at least three formats the online retail giant is exploring as it makes a play for a higher share of grocery spending. With in-store technology designed to track customers’ every step, the Amazon Go concept promises “No Lines” and “No Checkout.”
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The first Amazon Go concept store is roughly the size of a convenience store, though according to the Wall Street Journal the company is also testing a drive-thru concept as well as a traditional 30-to-40,000 square foot grocery store that would combine in-store shopping and curbside pickup.
The Amazon Go store, at roughly 1,800 square feet in downtown Seattle, resembles a convenience store-format in a video Amazon released Monday. It features artificial intelligence-powered technology that eliminates checkouts, cash registers and lines. Instead, customers scan their phone on a kiosk as they walk in, and Amazon automatically determines what items customers take from the shelves. After leaving the store, Amazon charges their account for the items and sends a receipt.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Dec 5, 2016.