Is Amazon Go Worth It?
A look at how Amazon Go began and where it’s going.
Jul 22, 2019
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Four years after its conception, Amazon Go has just 14 brick-and-mortar stores—far short of its goal of a store on every corner. Bloomberg Businessweek dives into the reasons why the e-commerce giant spent seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars to create this new cashierless store concept.
The current Amazon Go Stores are located in downtown office districts in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle, and feature a small selection of sandwiches, meal kits and sodas. But the magic lies in the non-existing cash registers, allowing customers to simply walk out the door as Amazon charges their credit card on file. Bloomberg calls these Go stores a marvel and says they are the result of technological genius.
But “they also illustrate the company’s tendency to pursue technology for technology’s sake, resulting in a store that offers all the selection of a 7-Eleven, but with more complexity and cost,” Bloomberg says.
Engineers were trying to solve one problem: “how to figure out what people are grabbing without going through the items one by one at checkout.” Eventually, they settled on a solution and formed ambitious plans to put a store on every corner. Seven years into the project, however, they’re just opening their 14th.
Despite some ups and down with Amazon Go, the company is more interested in the bigger prize: the $12 trillion grocery industry. According to Bloomberg, “one former employee claims [Amazon Go is] one of the most expensive research and development projects in the company’s history.” So it can’t all be for nothing.
Device integration E-commerce EMV Payment
