The Age of the Automated Store: Amazon Go and the Shopping Experience of Tomorrow

Buying experiences handled by machines and software algorithms have been inching their way into our lives for some time now. Self-checkout is one such example, available in many countries for closing in on a decade. The same goes for online retail experiences like Amazon.com.

So it comes as no surprise that Amazon has decided to take a shot at taking the no-hassle benefit of online shopping and combining it with the immediate gratification and assurance of shopping in person. Amazon's newest venture, Amazon Go (sounds a bit like Alpha Go - coincidence?) aims to do exactly this in an experimental shopping experience currently available only in Seattle.

Automated stores have been around in one form or another for some time. At it's core, this is what a vending machine is. But these hardly offer full retail experiences. Now larger companies like Amazon are beginning to give more serious versions of this essential idea full consideration. The idea is that with full automation stores can cut costs (employee costs among others), reduce lines, and streamline the in-person retail experience. Right now Amazon Go is merely a grocery store, but it isn't hard to imagine the megalith going toe-to-toe with other retail experiences by the end of the 2020's.

The only people you'll encounter at Amazon Go are at the front door (except for the ID checker inside near the alcoholic beverages. They're there to ensure that you have the app installed on your phone and that you scan the barcode associated with your Amazon Go credit or debit card in order to enter.

Once inside, you'll notice that everything looks more or less normal. You'll find just about everything you'd find in a staffed grocery store, except lines (well, not at it's opening, apparently, but this is supposed to the exception, not the rule). When you look to the ceiling that changes. There you'll find an array of cameras that are arranged in order to cover every conceivable inch of the store.

These cameras are the key to the experience.

Instead of having to scan your food or have it 'rung up' by a cashier, you can simply pick it up and go. The deep learning algorithms 'know' when you have picked something up and when you have put it down, tracking you as an entity through the store, watching both when you pick things up and when you put them down, and adding or removing them from your cart accordingly. When exiting the store it rings you up for what you've bought.

No muss, no fuss. Impressive, no?

According to numerous journalists the cameras are nearly impossible to fool, with one reporter going so far as to re-enter the store while drinking from a can he'd already bought, taking a new drink of the same kind off of the shelf while drinking from the old one. So far no one has been able to game the system. Errors do happen, but they're rare and I'm betting they become rarer with each day as the algorithms learn.

What Are the Possibilities

If you had asked me three years ago what the future of shopping would be, I probably would have told you drones. Actually, I still believe that to be the case, long term (the next five years or so). In the near term, however, it looks like there's a new contender.

The question is: will something actually come of this, or will this sit on the shelf much like Amazon's drones have over the past year? Is Amazon doing a set of publicity stunts to reel in more customers, or are they experimenting and tweaking for massive and disruptive changes that they hope to debut in the next few years?

My money's on the latter. It just doesn't make any sense for them to go to so much trouble merely for a slice of attention. Amazon has seen the retail landscape shift and change time and again, and I'm sure that if there's one thing they've learned it's this: you've got to always be thinking about the retail experience of tomorrow, even as you deliver the one of today. If it is just a series of stunts, my bet is that Amazon will not be the world dominant force it currently is in a decade.

Putting it All Together With A Heavy Dash of Speculation

Let's think for a moment: why in the world would Amazon be interested in grocery stores? Besides the obvious reason that this is a weak point of its online retail experience, what else might be motivating them? We must remember that Amazon is a well-built machine. Everything they do is for a reason. Thinking in the context of drones, why would owning a series of stores be useful when combined with the power of drones?

Well, if you can deliver everything else to people, why not food too? Amazon will never completely dominate retail shopping until they are able to complete that experience. And why partner with local stores when you can build your own automated store, and make a much bigger chunk of the profit? If each store also has drone delivery, people have the option of either (or even both).

Imagine walking into a store, deciding you want to have something delivered to a location you'll be at later that day (maybe your car doesn't have room, maybe you have other errands and you don't want it to spoil, maybe a billion other reasons). Consider this convenience against going to a traditional store where you'll have to wait in line, carry it to your car, and go straight home. And this says nothing of the pain of having to go there in the first place.

Automation is coming to a store near you. Grocery stores are hardly the only example. Fast food chains are already beginning to dip their toes into automation, and they're finding that the water's fine. By the mid 2020's I'll eat my hat if there aren't at least a few available in first world countries. Companies that want to survive the coming wave of home automation that is likely to take off in the next decade had better be ready to deliver a streamlined, hassle-free experience. It seems that, as usual, Amazon is one step ahead. If they follow through with automated stores (and with drones) they might just stay that way for foreseeable future.

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Author's Note: The big post is coming. It'll be labeled 'big post'. I'm fighting to have it out by month's end.

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