Amazon’s intended purchase of Whole Foods for $13.7 BILLION seems to push them towards their goal of opening a “massive chain” of 2,000 grocery stores. Jeff Bezos is plotting his takeover of our brick and mortar retail industry.
In December 2016, Amazon unveiled a grocery store without lines or checkout counters. Amazon Go, a 1800-square-foot retail space located in the company’s hometown of Seattle, lets shoppers just grab the items they want and leave; the order gets charged to their Amazon account afterwards.
Amazon Go works by using computer vision and sensors to detect what items you’re taking out of the store. You start by scanning an app as you enter the Amazon Go shop. You do your normal shopping, and the sensors throughout the store identify the items in your cart and charge them to your account when you walk out the door. It’ll feel like shoplifting, except you’re actually being watched by more cameras than you can imagine.
The shop will stock most items you’d find in a local convenience store: snacks, drinks, premade food like salads and sandwiches, and grocery essentials like bread and milk. It’ll also sell Blue Apron-like meal kits that let you cook your own dinners for two.
On the consumer level, the benefits are obvious — no waiting in line or fussing around with self-checking machines. But for Amazon, the company could potentially track you and your phone as you browse the store to track items you buy. By looking at your movements in the store as you shop, Amazon could analyze items you may have noticed or were potentially interested in buying (i.e., picking something up off a shelf and putting it back down.) Combine this with your Amazon.com browsing activities and the company could gear up to serve even more recommended products wherever you’re online.
This is all part of Amazon’s grand plan to become the logistics backbone of retail, both online and offline. More brick-and-mortar locations make it easier for the company to conduct grocery delivery through its Amazon Fresh brand. And as more customers begin turning to Amazon for groceries and everyday supplies, the lower Amazon can bring its prices as it scales upward and purchases inventory in larger amounts. The deeper these layers intertwine, the more likely a consumer is to subscribe to Amazon Prime, which will surely begin incorporating offline benefits to complement its free shipping and video freebies.
At the end of the day, Amazon wants to sell consumers any and every product it can, while having the network to move that product into a person’s home that very same day. With planned physical locations that cater to every style of shopping, the company is well on its way to realizing that vision.
Wall Street Journal report: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-grocery-store-concept-to-open-in-seattle-in-early-2017-1480959119
