According to a report by Reuters, Amazon has signed several deals with unnamed customers for its Just Walk Out technology used in their brick-and-mortar Amazon Go stores.
The biggest difference from shopping at an Amazon Go store is customers shopping at retailers using the Just Walk Out tech won’t use an app, but will have to insert a credit card into a gated turnstile to enter. Once inside the store, any items picked up by the customer, or by guests who accompany them, are added to their virtual cart and are billed to the credit card once they leave the store. Shoppers who want a receipt can type their email address into a kiosk at any store, and Amazon will send receipts to that address each subsequent time the credit card is used at a Just Walk Out location, no matter the retailer.
“This has pretty broad applicability across store sizes, across industries, because it fundamentally tackles a problem of how do you get convenience in physical locations, especially when people are hard-pressed for time,” Dilip Kumar, Amazon’s vice president of physical retail and technology told Reuters.
Amazon will install the Just Walk Out technology, including ceiling cameras and shelf weight sensors at retailers’ stores, regardless of whether they are new locations or retrofits.
On the point of customer privacy, Kumar said Amazon saves the email address and ties that to the credit card information, solely for the purpose of charging the customer. Reuters also reported that Kumar would not discuss whether or how Amazon would integrate this into retailers’ loyalty programs but said, “These are the retailers’ customers.”
It will be interesting to see which retailers are the first to implement Just Walk Out systems and TWICE will continue to follow this budding retail approach.
See also: Are Game Designers, Retailers Missing An Untapped Customer Base?
