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Amazon Go is nearing the finish line (AMZN)
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Amazon Go stores, which allow customers to pick up their items, walk out, and have their Amazon accounts automatically charged, is nearing the end of its testing phase, Bloomberg reports.
In the stores, shoppers will scan their smartphones upon arrival, and then cameras, shelf sensors, and algorithms will automatically identify which items the shoppers walk out with. Consumers' Amazon accounts will then be charged accordingly, eliminating the checkout process entirely.
The technology has performed well in some of Amazon’s more extreme tests — for example, when three Amazon employees went into one of the stores while wearing Pikachu costumes and picked up some items, the technology assigned each product to the right employee and charged them correctly, which is promising for the technology’s future capabilities.
The technology is still having difficulties, however, and Amazon must work out the kinks quickly because it has competition. Amazon Go was previously delayed because it couldn’t handle more than 20 people in the store at once, and it's currently struggling with accurately charging groups of people shopping together, like families. The e-commerce giant is surely hard at work to fix the technology’s issues, but it should work quickly, as there's already a startup offering similar technology, providing a clear challenge to Amazon Go.
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