origin

After reviewing Amazon's acquisition records in the past decade, we determined that four companies have a greater correlation with the launch of Amazon Go, namely Orbecus, 2lemetry, Blink and Body labs. The first two companies were acquired in 2015, and the latter two companies were acquired in 2017. Their correlation with Amazon Go is weaker than the first two.

Shopping process

When consumers enter Amazon Go to shop, they first need an Amazon account and install the Amazon application on their smartphone. After the user turns on the phone and enters the store, the customer's face will be recognized at the entrance to confirm the user's identity.

When consumers stop in front of the shelf and select products, the camera will capture and record the products picked up or put down by the customers. At the same time, through the infrared sensors, pressure sensors (to confirm which products are taken away) and load sensors (to record which products are put back) on the shelves, the data of the products purchased by the users will be transmitted to the information center of the Amazon Go store in real time without any delay. Customers can leave the store directly when they pay. The sensors will scan and record the products purchased by consumers, and automatically settle the corresponding amount in the consumers' accounts.

How to operate

In the whole recognition process, there are two processing methods:

One is to track the customer from the moment he or she enters the store;

The other is to actively track customers after detecting their presence between shelves.

There are two ways to judge whether a customer leaves the store:

One is to track the customer all the way until they leave the store and settle the bill;

One is to settle the bill after no customer movement is detected between the shelves for a few minutes.

Since bill settlement has a delay of 5-15 minutes, we prefer Amazon to use the second processing method. When the recognition accuracy can meet the requirements, lower cost is the key to its success.

develop

In December 2016, AmazonGo opened for internal testing at Amazon's Seattle headquarters.

On January 22, 2018, Amazon Go opened to the public. It is also Amazon’s first unmanned retail store.

In September 2018, Amazon plans to open its unmanned grocery store Amazon Go in the Big Apple, New York, continuing its expansion beyond its base in Seattle.

In 2019, Amazon plans to introduce the unmanned checkout technology behind Amazon Go to places such as airports and cinemas, and is in talks with relevant retailers on this matter.

Influence

1. There is no cashier, customers check out by themselves, saving labor costs

2. Amazon Go is a practical implementation of Amazon's flywheel effect. If Amazon can always take user experience as its starting point, traffic will naturally increase driven by word-of-mouth effects, thereby attracting more suppliers to join, which will in turn drive further upgrades in user experience.

References

• 1. AmazonGo details: Sina Technology [cited on 2018-03-02T16:00:00.000Z]
• 2. Amazon Go, the unmanned store, continues to expand: the next stop is New York: Phoenix Network Technology [cited on 2018-09-06T16:00:00.000Z]
• 3. Amazon plans to introduce Amazon Go unmanned cashier technology to airports and cinemas: Sina Technology [cited on 2019-09-29T16:00:00.000Z]
• 4. AmazonGo Impact: Sina Technology [cited on 2018-03-02T16:00:00.000Z]