Amazon Go unmanned store continues to expand: Next stop in New York

Amazon, with a market value of just over $1 trillion, announced plans to open an Amazon Go unmanned store in New York and continue to expand beyond its home base of Seattle.

 

Amazon Go has no cashier staff and does not use cash, allowing customers to buy items with the help of a smart phone app.

It is widely believed that this concept will transform brick-and-mortar retail. An Amazon spokesman said, “we plan to open Amazon Go in New York,” but did not say when.

Customers must scan a mobile app to enter the store when they are shopping in an Amazon go unattended store. Once in, the cameras and sensors track what they take from the shelves. Amazon will automatically charge the credit card they added after the customer leaves.

Amazon opened its first concept store in Seattle in January and has now grown to three. The company also said in May that it would expand to San Francisco and Chicago later this year.

The unmanned store is an attempt by Amazon to seize more sales in the grocery category, which is still dominated by physical sales.

Retail experts believe that Amazon go unmanned stores can also provide Amazon with valuable customer data that can help its online business. In addition, this non-queuing technology facilitates consumer spending because users are not aware of their order totals until they leave the store.

At the same time, people are also paying attention to the impact of Amazon Go on employment. Although Amazon Go has no cashiers, it has employees who prepare fresh food for customers in the store’s kitchen, plus it has greeters, and a person who checks the customer’s identity in the wine section.

Obviously, the Amazon go unmanned store model can save more labor costs for offline stores, and when it develops to a certain extent, it means an increase in the number of unemployed people.