E-commerce giant Amazon has opened a new checkout-free “Go” Grocery store in Seattle this week, with 5,000 items available across its largest brick and mortar store yet.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon has opened a 10,400-square-foot store in Seattle this week for its checkout-free Go Grocery store and will stock over 5,000 items at the new location. The store uses a range of cameras, shelf sensors, and software to track items in the store allowing shoppers to simply pick up items they want and walk out the doors. Their accounts are then charged via a smartphone app as they leave.
Amazon has been running a number of these stores since 2018 but this is the first time the technology has been implemented on such a large scale. Shoppers at the Seattle location can choose from a wider range of products than at other Go Grocery stores. The store has also been position closer to residential areas as opposed to business districts to encourage shoppers to choose the store for their usual weekly shop.
Amazon Go Vice President Dilip Kumar told the Journal: “There’s no real upper bound. It could be five times as big, it could be 10 times as big.” Kumar did not stated how many Go Grocery stores have been planned but Amazon has previously stated that it hopes to open as many as 3,000 Go Grocery stores by 2021.
However, the stores have not launched without some issues. GeekWire reports that implementing accurate weighing and pricing for goods such as loose produce has been a key area of focus for the larger stores. Other issues that the stores have faced is that there’s no meat or seafood counter or on-site food preparation. Fresh meat products are instead brought in throughout the week and individually wrapped. Buying alcohol means that a human worker must verify the customer’s ID.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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