AMAZON GO

Before visiting New York I had seen a video on Facebook of someone experiencing the new Amazon Go store and I had hoped I would pass by one to try it out myself and luckily I did, so I want to talk you through my experience and my thoughts on this new way of shopping. If you don't know what Amazon go is; "Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world’s most advanced shopping technology so you never have to wait in line. With our Just Walk Out Shopping experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go! No lines, no checkout." and how is this possible "Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Our Just Walk Out Technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you’re done shopping, you can just leave the store. A little later, we’ll send you a receipt and charge your Amazon account.". The shop sells ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options made by chefs, local kitchens and bakeries. There is also a selection of grocery essentials ranging from staples like bread and milk to artisan cheeses and locally made chocolates, as well as chef-designed Amazon Meal Kits, with all the ingredients you need to make a meal. To enter the shop all you need is an Amazon account, the free Amazon Go app on iPhone or Android phone, which you scan to enter the shop, you can put your phone away whilst you shop and it still tracks you and then you just leave without doing anything. There are 7 locations in Chicago, 8 in New York, 5 in San Francisco and 5 in Seattle, so in a few of the major American cities, hopefully they will expand into other countries when they have been successful there.

So how was my experience in the store, I visited 30 Rockefeller Plaza which I think is one of their smaller locations by the look of their website, which I can agree with, it was quite small but for a convinence store it had basically all you needed for a lunch or snack, not a weekly shop. As I had never been before I had to stop and download the app which did take a little bit of time but they did provide a wifi and if you were local I'm sure you'd already have the app so it would be easier to go straight through, I scanned my code and went on in.

Like I said it was very small and too the right of me was some paper bags which you could take and put your shopping straight into and this section with snack foods like packet meat and nuts and breakfast bars etc. Opposite this was a fridge section filled with pots of fresh fruit and then on the end was a bakery section filled with pre made paninis, sandwiches, wraps and sushi. Following along there was a lunch section full of salads, which did actually look really good, there was a wide variety of salads and they looked a lot nicer than the ones we find in Tesco and a little feature I noticed and appreciated is that all the different parts of the salad are in little sections in the big pot so that they don't mix together and go gross or if you don't like a certain part you can leave it out, but also the dressing and lemon slices and little extras were included so you could make it your own. There was a massive drink selection which supplied basically anything you would need. There was also this little section of none food products including toilet roll, toothbrushes, razors, lip balm, tablets and even phone chargers and pregnancy tests, so basically anything you could want.

I picked up this Herberts lemonade which was amazing but we had already eaten so I didn't get anything else but I wish I could have tried some more. I also noticed from the video I watched they mentioned that there were sensors above which tracked you and the items but I'm not quite sure how. Also as we left there was this small section which has napkins, cutlery and extra condiments to have with your food which I felt is a great feature to have for those going to work.

My receipt came out right and I was only charged for the lemonade I picked up so that was successful, whilst I was in there I did pick up and put down a few items to test if it would sense it but I'm not sure what happens if someone was to pick up an item and give it to you who would be charged and if you took in kids would they all have to get the app? Theres still a few things I'm unsure on how they would work in the store be overall for a quick lunch I think this is an amazing idea, so often I get stuck in a massive queue when I'm in a rush and just want to grab one thing so this will be amazing for situations like that. They are still employeeing people to work on the entrance to help people with any issues and there are chefs and people stocking up there shelves so its still economical in that sense. The prices seemed about the same as the other supermarkets I went into in New York and the food quality looked high and most of the selves were fulled stocked. Overall I enjoyed my experience and the technology has blown me away and I hope that it moves to England as I would love to visit a larger store and maybe test and ask some of my questions.