Amazon launches first supermarket without a cashier in the United States – Le Figaro

The giant of e-commerce has opened in Seattle, its first store food. Its special feature : it has no cashier. It is her shopping without paying. Amazon has used the same technologies as those of the autonomous car.

A store without a cashier. Where we do not disburse a penny on the spot. Where we add products to his shopping cart, before you go, complete freedom. This is the great challenge that is new Amazon. The giant world of e-commerce has just opened its first food store in Seattle, near its headquarters. In the test phase, this supermarket is for the moment reserved to the employees of Amazon. It should open to the public in early 2017.

By revealing on Monday the profile of his store in a video posted on Twitter, Amazon has created a real revolution in the food trade. “No lines, no check out, no registers (no queues, no regulation, no cash): the concept called Amazon Go is clear. “Four years ago, we began to ask ourselves what we would look like the races if we could just grab what we wanted and leave,” says the voiceover on the video.

The video presentation of Amazon’s Gb:

in Addition to the lack of funds, Amazon has chosen a format that is human-sized for his first space, 170 m2. A nearby store, the polar opposite of its warehouses XXL. The rumor was a time referred to the assumption of a drive. Customers must have an Amazon account and have downloaded the free app Amazon Go before entering the store. They only have to scan their smartphone at the entrance to the store in order to be identified, before storing.

“Amazon has had recourse to the same technologies as those used by autonomous cars,” says the e-retailer. We are at the heart of artificial intelligence: it is a mixture of “computer vision” (acquisition, processing, analysis of real-time images of the environment around the vehicle), smart sensors and algorithms to anticipate the scenarios that the wildest.

Thanks to these technologies, Amazon automatically detects the products that are bought or rested on shelves. When the consumer leaves the store, they are added to his virtual shopping cart. Shortly after, he receives his receipt by email.

The e-retailer also innovates on the assortment in order to provide a customer experience different from that of traditional supermarkets. It also sells products of brands such as prepared meals as well as an offer of snacks. It also offers “kits” home made in order to be able to prepare a dinner for two in thirty minutes on the clock.

there is No doubt that these images will be scrutinized by the distributors around the world, for which Amazon has become synonymous with nightmare. The american group, which has revolutionized the standard of delivery and ringardisé many distributors, the market since a long time food products. But it is launched recently in fresh produce with Fresh in several american cities and with Premium in Europe.

– Side stores, “hard”, he had already surprised in the beginning of the year by inaugurating its first store in Seattle. It could be the open 400 in the world, according to an expert quoted by the English press. It had also launched pop-up stores in shopping malls.

In 2012, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, had confided that he “would love to open physical stores.” if he could find a concept that is “Amazon”… It is now done.