
“Just walk out” technology by Amazon - bookofjoe
https://justwalkout.com/
======
boublepop
Aaaand there’s the play. Amazon wasn’t trying to compete with other retails
stores by leveraging their tech edge, they were positioning themselves to
becoming the single provider of retail checkout solutions for the future. You
either opt-in to giving Amazon all your retail data, or you become the only
old fashioned “wait in line to get served” store on the street.

And where is the competition? Is there anyone at all who can provide something
like this?

~~~
inkaudio
There are number of tech companies directly competing in this space:

[https://standard.ai/](https://standard.ai/)

[https://grabango.com/](https://grabango.com/)

[https://www.getzippin.com/](https://www.getzippin.com/)

[https://www.v7labs.com/retail](https://www.v7labs.com/retail)

[https://www.getzippin.com/](https://www.getzippin.com/)

There are competitive options, if you’re in retail you do not have to give
Amazon all your “retail data” or use their tech.

~~~
Animats
Do any of those companies actually have a live customer? Not a demo store, a
real paying customer with more than one location live?

Standard.ai apparently has a demo store in SF, although it's been closed due
to the coronavirus epidemic.

Grabango - one installation in test at a Giant Eagle store.

Getzippin - one installation in test at a Lojas Americanas store. Their site
gives the impression that it's really about getting people to install their
phone app, so they can be spied upon.

v7labs - we're AI, we don't need installations.

~~~
HUSSTECH
[https://www.thirdeyelabs.com/](https://www.thirdeyelabs.com/) \- real
customers \- real money \- multiple-sites Plus they beat Amazon to this
concept by a good few months.
[https://www.thirdeyelabs.com/news](https://www.thirdeyelabs.com/news).
Granted all the focus/attention in this space is in the US. But it is
happening elsewhere too.

~~~
StrictDabbler
"Beat them to this concept"? I can't even remember the first time I heard
about this idea. 2003? 1995? I half-suspect I read about the idea in OMNI
Magazine.

It's always been a question of when the supporting technology was going to be
good enough to make it work. The idea has been around long enough for most of
the early patents to expire.

~~~
HUSSTECH
> It's always been a question of when the supporting technology was going to
> be good enough to make it work.

Yep, I meant more along the lines of how you put it i.e. packaged up and ready
to start selling it as a boxed-up/drop-in solution.

------
mherdeg
This is just an observation that doesn't contribute meaningfully to
discussion, but ...

Twenty years ago this web site would 100% have looked like an April Fool's
joke.

Don't know what to make of that. Maybe it's that although retail feels almost
exactly the same as it always has, under the hood lots of parts have really
been moving, and I just haven't noticed?

The parallel observation is that when Gmail was announced it totally did seem
like a prank. You're offering how much storage for free? for everyone? How?.

~~~
Crazyontap
Yeah with all the innovation it indeed seems like we are living in a fairy
tale. 20 years ago it would be impossible to think that you can order stuff
from an unknown location/seller using a piece of glass. And soon we'll have
drones coming to our house with packages.

~~~
notJim
20 years ago was the year 2000. Amazon and eBay were founded in 1995.

Also: imagine you could write what you want on a ground up dead tree, drop it
in a special box and a few weeks later, the item shows up. That's a catalog,
and Sears was making them in the late 1800s. I bet there are older examples.

~~~
Izkata
> imagine you could write what you want on a ground up dead tree, drop it in a
> special box and a few weeks later, the item shows up.

And suddenly I'm reminded of _If all stories were written like science fiction
stories_

[https://web.archive.org/web/20040929041451/http://www.shrove...](https://web.archive.org/web/20040929041451/http://www.shrovetuesdayobserved.com:80/flight.html)

------
ndelage
The last few times I've gone to my local pharmacy (Rite Aid) I've watched a
single cashier operate more than one checkout registers at a time. She did
this because it took so long to process payment and print a receipt -- e.g.
while she waited for my payment to go through (via credit card) she'd ring up
the next customer on another register.

She's trying to ring up the most customers per minute possible and using a
second register helps her increase her checkout rate.

It's not unusual that I spend more time waiting to check out than I do
actually shopping. I'd love solutions like "just walk out" since my experience
lately seems to be something along the lines of "grab what I need and stand in
line unnecessarily".

~~~
AllanHoustonSt
I feel like self checkout kiosks already solve this. Commodotized Amazon Go
tech is a minute improvement in convenience compared to traditional cashier ->
self checkout.

~~~
notyourwork
Minor compared to self checkout seems understating the impact depending on
where you are and how busy the store is. I find myself waiting in line for a
self checkout regularly. (Target and recently Home Depot.) Compared to just
walking out, this would save at least 5 minutes for each visit in my
experience.

------
CurrentB
It it just me or are people massively underestimating this? I feel like the
impact of this will be close to the self driving car in terms of a vast
rollout of massive new automation.

I've been to Amazon Go a few times, the small one in NYC, and the selection is
underwhelming but the walk out experience is amazing. And since then I've
fantasized about just walking out pretty much every time I'm in a grocery
store. The technology really feels special, like a sudden vast improvement in
something I never really even thought could be improved.

If there are two grocery stores to choose between, I would go further and/or
pay a bit more for the one I can "just walk out" of.

Not only that stores could cut staff pretty much right away. Amazon could
charge some fraction of the payroll reduction + processing fees and it would
be a no brainer for stores to implement, especially as the number of competing
stores increases.

People are talking in this thread about how there is some competition "in the
works", but amazon has multiple live deployments already. People are talking
about the obvious dystopian angle here (spying on your data). Personally I'd
give any company all by buying habits if it means I can skip lines after
buying the stuff.

Personally I think this is going to be huge, and I will be betting big on
Amazon.

~~~
gordon_freeman
I don't want to criticize or undermine this initiative in any way but someone
like me who frequently uses Safeway's self-checkout machines at my local
grocery store, to me this just feels like overengineering. I never had any
problems with self-checkout and am always able to quickly scan-and-pay within
a couple of minutes when I visit the store once a week.

~~~
CurrentB
So if you close your eyes and visualize a grocery store experience where you
put stuff directly into your tote bags or your backpack and walk right out,
with 0 time spent on anything after you have everything you need, this doesn't
seem like something completely beyond self-checkout to you?

I've used plenty of self checkout lanes too and it's roughly the same
satisfaction as going in a cashier lane. It's still X + Y steps where X is the
number of items you have an Y is payment related steps.

(It's possible that I just hate lines (and self checkout?) way more than other
people)

~~~
0xffff2
>So if you close your eyes and visualize a grocery store experience where you
put stuff directly into your tote bags or your backpack and walk right out,
with 0 time spent on anything after you have everything you need, this doesn't
seem like something completely beyond self-checkout to you?

Not at all. It seems like a tiny, infinitesimal even, improvement over self
checkout. Waiting in line is annoying, spending a minute or two scanning
groceries is not. At least in my area, self checkout moves fast enough that I
rarely have to wait for one to be available.

~~~
drdec
Now imagine you are shopping for a family of six for an entire month and you
have two carts bursting with groceries. Still think it's only a tiny
improvement?

~~~
anoncareer0212
No, I think it's a nightmare, because these stores are ridiculously small and
don't have multiple carts and a parking lot. They're concept stores in urban
areas that they can't monetize effectively

------
nck4222
My biggest problem with this is that from what I can tell, the only way to
know how much you're going to be automatically charged (as well as what items
the tech thinks you're purchasing), is to go to a kiosk in the store and get a
receipt. Which seems to completely defeat the convenience of just walking out
in the first place.

I wouldn't feel comfortable just walking out without knowing how much I'm
going to be charged, so this tech is essentially useless to me.

~~~
deanCommie
This is the "lame - no wireless, less space than a nomad" take.

Are the prices not listed on the individual items?

Purchasers make decisions on a product by product basis, not based on the
total.

How often are you at the checkout and say "Wait, HOW MUCH is my bill? never
mind then, going to go put some things back."

Sure, it happens, but it's a 0.0001% use case.

edit: OK, fair play to everyone who responded and said this is a common use
case if you're poor. Not sure how relevant the food stamps argument is here,
since this is an automatic pay and checkout system.

But, remember - this requires a credit card and an app. As you put things in
your basket, your app shopping cart is also updated, and you can track your
running tally.

~~~
sykick
I was a cashier in college for several years. Your scenario happens far more
than 0.0001% of the case. It's fairly common amongst poor people. Then there
are items that aren't acceptable for use by food stamps and must be paid for
separately. Then there is WIK and trying return WIK items for cash refunds.
You also have people who misread the labels. Then there are items that aren't
in the right place and the label says a price different than what the register
says. For instance, "Cambell's Tomato Soup" can is misplaced in the "Cambell's
Healthy Alternative Tomato Soup" location. Most people don't carefully read
labels of the items on the shelf. They just assume that the label under the
item is correct.

~~~
chrisseaton
> It's fairly common amongst poor people.

Are these people shopping at Amazon boutiques?

~~~
uselesstech
Amazon Go is a convenience store...if convenience stores pick this up then
yes, they will shop there.

~~~
bigiain
But sadly, will no longer be able to get a job there...

~~~
joezydeco
The Amazon Go I used to visit was maybe 200 square feet in size but had 4-5
people stocking and moving things around. And apparently there are others in
the back assisting the cameras and making sandwiches and whatnot.

------
chipperyman573
This post looked kind of weird to me so I looked up the whois, it's registered
to godaddy. Which is odd because it is not the same registrar as amazon.com or
aws, and aws operates a domain registration service so I can't imagine a real
amazon service would use godaddy. Combined with the fact that there's no
concrete plans set in place, it seems really fake.

~~~
tzs
If someone else had registered the name at GoDaddy before Amazon wanted it (it
was registered in 2013), and then Amazon bought it from them, would Amazon
transfer it to their normal registrar right away or let it stay where it is
until it is time to renew?

~~~
radicalriddler
I doubt Amazon would care about transfer fees, but having used Godaddy, they
would've been hard to play with.

~~~
discreditable
Some registrars don't allow you to transfer the domain away from them for a
period of time after transferring ownership. If they acquired the domain
recently that could be the reason.

------
JohnFen
> In Just Walk Out-enabled stores, shoppers enter the store using a credit
> card. They don't need to download an app or create an Amazon account.

But you may as well. By giving them a CC# you're allowing Amazon to spy on you
anyway -- and that's not even mentioning the copious surveillance in such
stores in the form of cameras and behavior detection.

> If shoppers need a receipt, they can visit a kiosk in the store and enter
> their email address.

Oh, and if you want a receipt, you'll have to give Amazon your email address,
too, which allows them to more easily tie your real-world identity and
activity to the profile they already have on you.

This sort of thing is a privacy disaster. I wouldn't set foot inside a store
that does this.

~~~
askafriend
> But you may as well. By giving them a CC# you're allowing Amazon to spy on
> you anyway -- and that's not even mentioning the copious surveillance in
> such stores in the form of cameras and behavior detection.

Ha! They already have a decade of my purchase history from being a Prime
customer and I shop using an Amazon Credit Card. They've got everything they
need and I don't mind.

Few people would be bothered by something like this. If they would be
bothered, we'd see bigger noise about grocery store loyalty programs which are
basically to track purchases.

~~~
JohnFen
> we'd see bigger noise about grocery store loyalty programs which are
> basically to track purchases.

In my area, anyway, a huge outcry happened when these programs began to be
adopted. Even now, eyeballing people checking out at the local shops, I'd say
that only half of people (at most) are using loyalty cards. And many people I
personally know who use loyalty cards do so in a manner to subvert the data
collection (usually by having one loyalty card that is used by many people).

So it seems to me a substantial percentage of people really are bothered by
them.

~~~
danShumway
I don't use a loyalty card at any of the stores I shop at, and anecdotally,
there's about a 50% chance that if I say "no" when the cashier asks if I have
a card or want to create an account, I will later on discover that they've
used a store code to give me the same discount.

This is without any prompting on my end, I never ask a cashier to do this for
me.

So apparently it's common enough that some cashiers on-instinct just stick a
store card in whenever someone says "no". It's common enough that none of them
look at me surprised when I refuse.

------
vessenes
Seeing a few negative comments here; I think these are short-sighted in the
extreme.

Labor is a major cost for retail; anything that massively reduces labor costs
is going to be hugely game changing. Combined with amazon promises that it
takes only a few weeks to integrate (seriously??) if this works at all, this
is going to be a super fast growth group at Amazon.

For reference think back to how many stories you’ve read about say managers
short changing employees a few _minutes_ at the end of work shifts.

This really could change retail permanently; the only question is if it works.

~~~
femiagbabiaka
if only most of the US labor force didn't rely on jobs in that sector...

~~~
dekhn
If only manual laborers in 1850s England didn't rely on jobs that were
replaced by machines (England went on to be far wealthier and provide far more
opportunities to its people after the industrial revolution).

~~~
femiagbabiaka
The Industrial Revolution was a terrible period for workers up until the labor
movement began fighting for putting basic protections in place. Lots of people
got very wealthy though, that's for sure.

This view of history as immutable, with the ends always meeting the means is
the sort of thinking that I believe is holding us back as a society.
Researchers are still studying the impact that the industrial revolution had
on not just the environment, but also the mental health of the descendants of
the working class in Europe: [https://hbr.org/2018/03/research-the-industrial-
revolution-l...](https://hbr.org/2018/03/research-the-industrial-revolution-
left-psychological-scars-that-can-still-be-seen-today).

We can and should do better.

~~~
baryphonic
Compared to what? Sure, it was awful compared to working at Google with
unlimited snacks and all of that. Compared to being a peasant subsistence
farmer, it wasn't so bad.

~~~
nullorundefined
it was literally misery on scales that hadn't been seen before. children were
expected to work in horrible and abusive conditions. everyone was working very
long and gruelling days for next to nothing and had no way to protect
themselves from exploitation.

~~~
bluGill
How is that different from subsistence farming?

~~~
buckminster
It was just as bad only with industrial accidents and diseases on top.

~~~
baryphonic
Entire families working in the fields all day didn't have accidents or
diseases in subsistence farming?

~~~
buckminster
In the UK industrial accidents were commonplace until the passing of The
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The very many maimings and deaths it has
(belatedly) prevented are less common in subsidence farming.

Of course farmers get sick, but they don't get the diseases created by
industry. There are a great many respiratory conditions and cancers that don't
occur naturally.

------
vsskanth
In terms of cost-convenience trade-off, can someone tell me how is this better
for a store when compared to self-checkout counters or scan-as-you-go apps (as
suggested below) ?

I use these frequently at Walmart and Sams without any problems. Rarely have
to deal with an actual checkout person unless I have to get a gift card.

IMO you can get very far simply addressing annoying latency and UX issues with
self checkout counters.

Edit: There is also the advantage of seeing what you're exactly being billed
for

~~~
reggieband
I love self-checkout and use it when available and reasonable. However, I have
seen lines. It feels the same as ATMs for me. Occasionally I am waiting behind
someone who just takes forever. I always wonder what they are doing, how it
can take what feels like 10 minutes to do what I attempt to get done in 1
minute.

Self-checkout is a bottleneck since there are a limited number of available
machines. I can see efficiency gains by removing that bottleneck.

~~~
vsskanth
I'm surprised many people here mention lines at the self-checkout. I shop in a
fairly busy Walmart and I never had to stand in line, even on Saturdays and
Sundays. They have like 15 of those counters on each side.

~~~
reggieband
It is literally a supply and demand thing. You happen to have experienced
high-supply/low-demand. Why are you surprised people mention low-supply/high-
demand scenarios?

In fact, just follow the logic down that road. Consider highly-volatile demand
purchase scenarios. A company might over-spend on self-checkout stations to
cover high-demand scenarios that go unused on more typical days. A more
efficient approach is to avoid requiring additional stations to cover changes
in demand. Just create a single system (walk out purchasing) that handles all
scenarios and be done with it.

~~~
vsskanth
I guess I'm just wondering if there's data on how often you these self-
checkout bottlenecks. The way other commenters describe it makes it seem like
it's fairly often. Hence the surprise.

Although I agree just-walk-out scales well with demand.

~~~
JohnFen
> The way other commenters describe it makes it seem like it's fairly often.

There's almost always a line at them when I walk by in the stores in my area.
Usually, the line there is about as long as the lines at the manned checkouts.

------
sequoia
I won't do it. Because 1. I value what's left of my privacy more than saving a
minute of human interaction here and there (are you really that busy? I'm not
and I have 4 kids) 2. I won't contribute to twisting the arms of my local
retailers and forcing them into amazon's yoke.

In short: to hell with this.

Edit: yoke

~~~
filoleg
Famous last words, as I predict this going just as well as people in 2020 who
use cash-only everywhere or, more extreme example, people not using any kind
of cell phone just to avoid tracking by carriers.

When you decide to make it really difficult for the world to engage with you,
the world will make sure to make it just as difficult for you to engage with
the world as well.

~~~
Dumblydorr
How's he making it difficult? This is how the world has operated for
millennia, pick item and pay money to cashier. Its amazon that's going to make
it harder for others.

~~~
filoleg
>How's he making it difficult?

This was mostly referring to the "no cellphone in 2020" scenario, and I hope
it is pretty obvious how much more difficult it is to engage with someone who
doesn't have a cellphone.

As for how that would apply to the grocery store scenario. When 99% of the
stores are automated using similar tech, he would be making it difficult for
retailers by (indirectly) demanding them to use cashiers and such, thus making
it more expensive and inefficient for the stores. And the stores will strike
back by simply not making such stores, thus making it extremely difficult for
the parent poster to shop without having to drive far out in hopes of finding
one of the few remaining non-automated stores.

------
callmeal
From TFA: >Shoppers can think of this as similar to typical security camera
footage.

Great. Now they know not just what I bought, but also what I browsed as I was
walking through the store.

How long is this footage going to be stored for, and who is it going to be
sold to? If there's a crime of happenstance around the store, will everyone
who purchased (or looked at purchasing) the item used in the commission of the
crime be rounded up and made to prove their innocence?

~~~
sailfast
Are you really going to steal from a store that requires you to sign your
credit card and surveils you throughout the shopping process? If anything I
could see significant improvements in typical loss prevention numbers paying
off pretty favorably.

If there is a crime, would they know exactly who took the item and didn't pay,
without you having to get "rounded up"? If not, can they really say their tech
works?

Related to this post: I wonder if retails aren't already applying algorithms
to browsing habits / security footage. Understanding whether large displays or
end caps are working could be valuable.

~~~
callmeal
I was talking about this[0] instance and not stealing from the store.

If there was a crime committed with an item available in the store, will
everyone who handled, bought or looked at that item now be considered a
suspect?

[0] [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-
bike...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-
past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761)

------
jessriedel
It is amazing to me that _this_ is the technological solution to eliminating
scanning barcodes at check-out lines. The obvious alternative is RFIDs, i.e.,
just push your cart through a scanner like airport security and all your items
appear on the display. (The "automatically bill your Amazon account or credit
card" part is optional either way.)

From talking to a couple supply chain people, the best explanation I have
heard for why RFIDs aren't ubiquitous, even though they now cost less than a
penny (EDIT: I'm wrong, more like 7-15 cents), is that barcodes are too
entrenched; RFIDs aren't nearly as useful until everything has one (since if
you have to barcode scan half your products, and they are intermixed with with
the RFID'd products, you might as well scan them all), and even retailers like
Walmart weren't able to pressure all their suppliers to switch at once.

I wonder if this could have been fixed years ago with a collective-action
solution like a stronger industry standards body or government regulation.

EDIT: Huh, could have sworn the cheap passive RFIDs cost less than a penny
now, but apparently they are still 7-15 cents. That would explain a lot.
Presumably the price would fall quite a bit if every product in America had an
RFID on it, but we're not there yet.

[https://www.rfidjournal.com/faq/show?85](https://www.rfidjournal.com/faq/show?85)

~~~
michaeltbuss
There's no way a cart full of goods will scan properly if you roll through a
scanner. RFID scanners don't handle RFID tags being stacked very well.

~~~
kweks
This is an area of extensive research ("anti-collision") and a solved issue.

Even decades old protocols support interacting with a plurality of tags
simultaneously.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singulation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singulation)

(Edit: added wiki article discussing anti-collision, which specifically
references grocery examples)

------
bobloblaw45
Good or bad, this just tickles me because it reminds me of that ibm rfid
commercial from the 90's (I think?) where it looks like a shoplifter is
blatantly robbing a supermarket and the security guard stops them and says
they forgot their receipt. They also had a bunch of other commercials that got
super close like kids watching on demand streaming movies.

~~~
bluGill
As I recall WalMart spent millions on it, and only gave up because if you buy
a cart of razor blades the rfid would miss one. (razor blades because of the
metal at weird angles is apparently the worse case)

------
vikramkr
Is any retailer going to actually be willing to trust amazon though? And what
if it doesn't work and the customer ends up not paying - is amazon also taking
on the liability for that?

~~~
kube-system
These are not new issues.

Retailers already rely on the trust of dozens if not hundreds of vendors for
operations. Trust is established through contractual obligations, pilot
programs, etc.

Shrinkage in the US is about 1.38% on average currently. Any competent
retailer would run a pilot and evaluate its effect on shrinkage rates.

~~~
vikramkr
I'm also referring to trusting amazon specifically. They're a competitor, and
not one known for playing nice. I've heard that retailers are hesitant to even
use AWS (I don't have a source for that and would love to hear otherwise if
that's the case?) - because of competitive concerns- so will people want to
work with amazon for something so core to their business?

~~~
judge2020
> I've heard that retailers are hesitant to even use AWS (I don't have a
> source for that and would love to hear otherwise if that's the case?) -

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-to-vendors-get-off-
ama...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-to-vendors-get-off-amazons-
cloud-1498037402?mod=e2tw)

~~~
vikramkr
Oh wow so that's worse than I had heard - not just avoid AWS but also force
suppliers off of AWS.

Yeah, I wonder how retailers are going to feel about amazon having a direct
pipeline of purchase data at all their competitors fed directly to a division
of the company that I'm sure they'll claim is sealed off from the rest of
operations. Even if amazon is playing totally fairly here, I don't see why it
makes sense for people to trust them with so much at risk

------
ttoinou
In France all our Decathlon (generic sport gear) stores already have RFID
chips and checking out (at a free outlet to self checkout or at a cashier
who'll basically do the same thing as you) consist of only putting the goods
in a basket, the recognition / scanning of the RFID chip is very good and
fast. If you walk out with goods you didn't buy the guard will have a
notification on his smartphone with the list of unpaid items.

They're already very close getting to "Just Walk Out" from Amazon situation
but I'm not sure how expensive putting an RFID chip in every product is.. ?

~~~
londons_explore
It's still at the ~8cents per item pricerange. Metal cans require a different
kind of more expensive tag.

Thats still to much for groceries where items are typically only ~$2.50, and
the staff time to scan a barcode is ~$0.01

~~~
jessriedel
Do you have a reference for that ~8 cent figure? I thought it had dropped
below a penny.

------
nearmuse
This is some outright spooky tech. I think it is an overkill for something
that could be implemented with a cart with RFID or barcode readers (or some
similar tech), or even cameras but only on carts. It kind of reminds me of
slapping IoT on Ts that need no Is and only adds security implications to
them, only here it is about privacy. Or of any other businesses that slap
high-tech onto stuff where people are content with much more basic solutions,
in lieu of solving difficult problems.

------
KKKKkkkk1
Why is Amazon not putting this in Whole Foods? Same reason why Waymo is not
putting the Waymo Driver into robotaxis that serve the public on anything that
approaches a mass scale. The technology is not ready.

------
WheelsAtLarge
I hate the no people future, therefore, I hate this service. Unfortunately for
me, that means nothing.

I see this service taking over, at the very least, a large percentage of the
7/11 bodega type of stores. I see a future where the corner store will return.
Over the last few years, companies have gone large so they can take advantage
of the economy of scale. This service will reduce labor costs and have costs
fall relative to similar stores previously.

Pundits were talking about Amazon opening stores with this tech. Why bother
when you can get someone else to do it while expanding your core business.
Imagine this, a one-man store where I order my inventory from Amazon and have
it delivered daily or close to that. They brought their multivendor Amazon
model where anyone can sell online using their online tech to the real world.
This is a case of most retailers playing checkers while Amazon is playing
chess. Yikes.

~~~
tinyhouse
My life wouldn't be the same without communicating with the Pakistani dude who
is looking at his phone when I buy something at 7/11...

~~~
korijn
Sure, there's downers everywhere but there are also positive people that
affect your day positively! There's a great lady at the local supermarket
where I live who has such high energy and good spirits that just seeing her
manage her team is uplifting.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Absolutely, and I hope there will continue to be artisan shops providing that
experience for those who want it. But I'm optimistic there will be, just as
farmers' markets haven't been entirely eliminated by your local supermarket.

------
superkuh
As long as there's still an option for human people to pay using their own
money it's fine. But if these stores only allow for corporate people to
purchase items (on behalf of their customer humans (credit cards)) then it is
a very unethical system and probably should be made illegal.

~~~
exhilaration
Oh they will, but it'll be the minimum number of checkout lanes and you'll
have to wait 15 minutes in line.

That's my experience at my local Walmart. There are maybe 2-4 lanes with human
cashiers (2 when it's slow, 4 when it's busier, but I've never been there at
peak) and 10-15 stations for self-checkout.

~~~
superkuh
Or worse, [https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pay-cash-amazon-go-
sa...](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pay-cash-amazon-go-san-
francisco-2019-9) [https://gizmodo.com/i-used-cash-at-amazons-cashless-store-
an...](https://gizmodo.com/i-used-cash-at-amazons-cashless-store-and-im-so-
sorry-1835415534)

------
badrabbit
Damn shame how there are no laws to regulate this sort of a thing. The obvious
convenience means this tech will be the norm. Is it better to live in a
society where my movement being tracked is the only way to buy groceries
compared to a third world country where I barely survive? I don't know, but it
truly is remarkable how technology has ruined even the most basic human
freedoms and dignity. The more I look at new tech the more I wonder if
technology is like a bell curve where right now humanity is over the peak and
descending rapidly to the point where the benefits of tech are outweighed by
it's harms. At the end, it isn't technology's fault but man's greed and
arrogance

~~~
laughinghan
Isn't it already the norm that there are security cameras in retail stores to
catch shoplifters? This doesn't really change that.

~~~
badrabbit
Yes. Recordings of video, not analysis of your movement and tracking people
with their name,social information,history facial recognition and gait
analysis.

Is there a difference between a security guard watching you and a person
walking around writing down every move you make, every facial
expression,posture,gesture,mood,interaction and instantly applying
sophisticated correlation in conjunction with thousands of historical data
points about you? Come on! There is a difference between a firecracker and
thermonuclear bomb.

~~~
laughinghan
Yes, but what does that have to do with "Just walk out"?

Grocery stores across the country could do (or may be already doing) all the
creepy things you're describing without implementing "Just walk out", with the
security cameras they already universally have installed. Or, they could
implement "Just walk out" without doing any of those creepy things.

They're irrelevant to each other.

I don't see why you have a problem with "Just walk out", it seems to me like
your problem is with the prevalence of security cameras. That's a valid
criticism of, say, Ring, because it's pushing to increase the prevalence of
home security cameras, but "Just walk out" isn't going to increase the
prevalence of retail store security cameras, they're already ubiquitous.

------
mlang23
Removing staff from stores will make my life considerably less independent. I
am blind, and depend on staff to help me find the items I need. In such
stores, I imagine it will only be possible to buy stuff if you bring your own
assistant. That is a considerable change in flexibility. When I have to
organize assistance just to be able to buy butter and bread, things will be
substantially more complicated. Given that web accessibility is also breaking
left and right, I truly wonder how long it will take until I really don't feel
at home on this planet anymore. I am guessing in 10 to 20 years, technology
and the "progress" it brings will totally have killed accessibility.

------
turc1656
Whatever happened to the RFID concept where they (not Amazon, but others)
previously envisioned attaching small, cheap RFID badges to all items and then
you would just do one big, quick scan at the end and it would read all the
RFID tags in your cart at once and you could walk out?

I like that idea better, honestly. It's more accurate and doesn't require
video monitoring and all sorts of AI/ML/DL algorithms. Though, I don't know
the practicality of attaching RFIDs to everything, nor the cost. And I assume
some people would try to just rip them off, which I imagine would be the
biggest concern, in addition to having the staff attach them to everything.

------
dillondoyle
I would bet that the money maker isn't the actual technology. The data they
could collect on consumer shopping habits, tied automatically to a cross-store
profile + an expanded Amazon SSP/DSP would create huge value to Amazon and
brands. Added onto their already fast growing advertising business.

If this is in fact their revenue play they could even sell this at a loss just
to build up the ecosystem, get a unmovable majority monopoly on the tech ->
and data.

Maybe even add on top something like Good RX where retailers pay amazon on top
to drive traffic to their stores. And even combine with Brands who want to
offer discounts. Double dip.

~~~
tinyhouse
Yes, like Amazon has shortage of data about consumer behavior...

------
aussieguy1234
With the cornavirus, retail business will be down. Retail workers will get
less shifts and lose their jobs, etc. Then, just like what happened during the
GFC, their jobs will be automated before the economy recovers.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
When I shopped with my wife for the first time, I was a little surprised that
before leaving any store, she pulls her cart to the side and carefully goes
over the receipt. The reason? Mistakes are made in pricing _all of the time_.
I can’t count how many times things ran up for us at the wrong price. She
would always go to the customer service desk and get an adjustment.

I probably missed out on hundreds of dollars just blindly trusting the receipt
my whole life. It’s nothing nefarious. Systems have bugs.

Takeaway for me is that I can’t use a technology that doesn’t let me verify
the price.

------
nborwankar
Amazon will have some record of all the transactions, at least initially to
help in the transition, and that means it can figure out what’s selling best
where, then undercut the stores online. Allowing Amazon inside your
transactions is not a strategy for long term survival. Having said that it’s
hard to see what other options retailers have when their competitors start
using this tech and improving margins. High end retailers can differentiate by
saying “we have actual people”.

~~~
timfrietas
And undercut them offline in Amazon Go, Whole Foods and whatever other
physical grocery initiatives are coming

------
unholiness
I'm curious, how does this technology deal with items that aren't individually
packaged? Is there a place for vegetables, meats, bulk foods, etc, or is the
technology limited to acting like a giant vending machine?

I hope that stores like these will one day be hubs where we can refill all our
bulk products and actually save on shipping and packaging. I fear that stores
like these will just sell me individually wrapped apples because it's not
worth the effort.

------
dcolkitt
Here's an off the wall idea. This technology could be used in airport
bathrooms to enforce hand washing during a pandemic.

It's well established that hand washing, or lack thereof, in an airport
setting can supercharge the global spread of disease. The spread of
coronavirus could be reduced by up to 60% by consistent handwashing[1] by air
travelers.

This tech could flag people who walk out of the bathroom without stopping to
wash their hands. The easiest way to enforce compliance would maybe to be have
a loud, embarrassing alarm go off when the perpetrator leaves the bathroom.
Social conformity and peer pressure would drastically increase hand washing
compliance.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/study-washing-hands-in-
airpo...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/study-washing-hands-in-airports-
could-stop-infectious-disease-spread.html)

~~~
soheil
It is terrifying that people actually advocate for such authoritarian measures
outside of mainland China. Every tyrant ever existed probably had at least one
valid reason to justify their particular flavor of tyrannical rule.
Coincidentally often it's not very difficult to find numbers that back up
stripping people of their freedom, just find the right statistics.

~~~
dcolkitt
Air travelers already submit too much more invasive measures. It's not like
the airport is a bastion of civil liberties or privacy. I can guarantee you
that the entrances and public parts of the bathroom (including the sinks) are
already monitored by cameras.

Also, I don't understand how this proposal is authoritarian in the slightest.
As written it involves zero coercion. The only enforcement mechanism is social
pressure, a force that already molds everybody's behavior umpteen times a day
to begin with.

~~~
43920
> Air travelers already submit too much more invasive measures. It's not like
> the airport is a bastion of civil liberties or privacy. I can guarantee you
> that the entrances and public parts of the bathroom (including the sinks)
> are already monitored by cameras.

This is basically the definition of a slippery slope.

------
vinceroni
From the FAQ:

 _What data does Just Walk Out technology collect from my shoppers?_

 _We only collect the data needed to provide shoppers with an accurate
receipt. Shoppers can think of this as similar to typical security camera
footage._

A rather (wide) open door for Amazon to collect valuable data on customers.
And is this really comparable to "a typical security camera footage"?

edit: formatting

------
zethraeus
Ah, the great assertion of disruption:

    
    
      their roles have simply shifted to focus on more valuable activities

------
BiteCode_dev
So, according to:

[https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011](https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011)

"Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of
technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and
deep learning. "

Basically, a computer will record everything I do in those store, analyze it,
and store it.

I find that terrifying personally.

Especially because the feature is so amazing, like google map amazing, in term
of how it can change the rhythm of your day.

So it will be like the smartphone revolution: at first we will fight having
everything spied on, then it's so convenient we will give in.

I don't see how we will get out of the hole we are digging for ourselves,
since the trap is that we are so eager to be in there.

------
chrysoprace
>Will people still be working in stores with Just Walk Out technology?

>Yes. Retailers will still employ store associates to greet and answer
shoppers' questions, stock the shelves, check IDs for the purchasing of
certain goods, and more - their roles have simply shifted to focus on more
valuable activities.

I think this raises questions about ethics in technology. Not to mention the
creepy cameras watching your every move, retail is a large source of
employment for non-academics and we're slowly phasing out the need for people
to operate stores. Here we've seen the self-serve checkouts which has one
staff-member supervise 8~12 self-serve checkouts. The amount of manned
checkouts has reduced so drastically that there's only one or two or in some
cases no manned checkouts open.

~~~
fastball
> I think this raises questions about ethics in technology

Does it? I have yet to see an instance where any amount of luddism makes any
sense. Stifling progress "for the jobs" is always bad for humanity in the long
run.

~~~
IshKebab
Yeah especially when the jobs are unpleasant ones. Are any young people
disappointed that they can't work in the coal mines?

------
choward
> A receipt will be emailed to them for this trip.

Is there any other information on what format this receipt is? Is it just an
image or something that's actually useful if I want to parse it and track my
own purchases?

I want some sort of machine readable receipt format to exist so I can analyze
my own spending. Unfortunately there is zero incentive to provide this.
Instead the stores we visit get to know more about our spending habits than we
do. And now you want to me to deliberately give all of this data not just to
the individual stores but also to Amazon?

Yeah right. I'm not giving Amazon access to all of this data. Are you serious?

------
ebauch
Am I the only one thinking this no-checkout comes at a huge cost of extreme
surveillance? This is creepy as fuck. I would never want it in a store, no
matter how much time I save. The self checkout machines at CVS make checkout
already x-times faster. This would only be a small gain a price I am not
willing to pay. Also there is some satisfaction in paying for things/checking
out.

------
robszumski
What a weird site and roll out of this announcement. The page doesn't even
have a <title> or call to action other than a buried email.

Is this someone's pet project to state that our landing page captured XX,000
hits in 24 hours?

~~~
buffin
Amazon has a history for being awful with making web pages. I had to peruse
the Amazon HTML code once for a research project not long ago, and their code
was littered with issues, including duplicate id. Their UX and even UI is
rotten beyond belief.

~~~
superkuh
Really? I've been consistently amazed with Amazon's web UI. It works perfectly
no matter if you have javascript on or off, no matter what browser. I bet I
could order in lynx if I wanted to. Almost no other large site does it as
well.

------
rossdavidh
So, maybe this will be the exception, but: \- Amazon bookstores have never
been successful, that I've seen; I recall the headline "Amazon sucks all the
joy out a physical bookstore" \- Amazon took Whole Foods over, and from what
my wife tells me it is now kind of a creepy vibe because so many shelves
aren't full

People don't just go to retail to get stuff; if that were all, they would all
have gone delivery long ago. If the vibe at a store is wrong, they won't go
in, for reasons that have more to do with subconscious than conscious
reasoning.

I am skeptical.

------
tinyhouse
The biggest advantage of this technology is not reducing labor cost. The
Amazon Go stores have lots of employees inside the stores doing different
things. It's about increasing traffic. How many times you went inside a store
and left after seeing a long line?

It can have other benefits like stealing alerts or whatever, but those I think
minor. One problem I see is that Amazon is a retailer so many of the potential
customers for this would be reluctant to do business with a major competitor.
I'm still waiting for this to be implemented in WF.

~~~
mrkeen
> How many times you went inside a store and left after seeing a long line?

For food or coffee, constantly. For general retail I'm not sure I've ever done
this.

------
nexuist
Wait, how does this even work? You can just walk in with any regular credit
card and they can read all the information they need to charge you completely
over the air?

Isn't that a huge security problem?

~~~
banana_giraffe
Given how vague they are about the entry process, I'm sure customers will be
expected to use a credit card on the entry device to open it.

This is like how the Amazon Go stores require you to scan a QR code from your
phone to get in the store.

------
sebringj
My young sons rejoice in that now they can easily sneak snacks into the
shopping cart at any "just walk out" store and us parents won't know until we
already bought it. :)

------
kunle
A bit like letting the fox in the henhouse.

"Hey lets allow this company that basically competes with us via Whole Foods
to also get data on who our customers are and what they buy and when"

------
scarejunba
This is awesome. I hope more places do this and I have to interact with the
minimum number of people through the experience. It'll also be great if there
were a high-end store that was for low-problem-shoppers only. i.e. I'd like a
place I can shop at that can control loss through theft, etc. and pass the
savings on to me.

It would be awesome if there were some sort of universal social credit score
you could combine with that so that I won't have to share my store with
thieves and all that.

------
alkonaut
I’ll use this tech if and only if Amazon sells it as a package of technology
but aren’t themselves in the loop seeing the transactions.

That is, they should be either seeing none of the transactions, or they should
be considered a third party that can’t collect or resell the data.

With contactless payments I fail to see the attraction too. Seems like it’s
ten years too late. Back when people stood in line to wait for slow card
transactions or people paying cash this thing would have worked.

------
nil-sec
I wonder how vulnerable this system is to adversarial attacks. This will
depend on the details of the implementation and is probably easy to guard
against (e.g. by using an additional, non-NN based tracker or out-of-
distribution detection), but it is an interesting scenario. Would you get
arrested for entering a shop with a sweater that features a (seemingly) random
noise print, making the payment system malfunction?

------
jedberg
I find it interesting that they are making this available to the public before
doing a major rollout at Whole Foods. Or maybe they're doing both?

~~~
ErikAugust
It's a website with an email address on it. My guess is that it is intended to
gauge demand as a standalone service.

~~~
JohnFen
There's a contact email address in the FAQ at the bottom of the page
specifically for retailers who are interested in this.

------
mcv
> _" Shoppers enter the store with a credit card, grab what they want and just
> walk out - it's that easy."_

I suspect it's still going to be slightly more involved than that. At the very
least, they need to know your credit card, so there's still going to be some
checkout, even if not every product has to be scanned manually.

------
lozaning
IDK what happened to it, but for a while the Mountain View Walmart had a
system where your cart had a pricing gun thing and you'd scan stuff as you put
it in your cart. Then when you got to self checkout you paid in the Walmart
app and left with no other steps. I thought it was pretty convenient.

Its no longer there and I've not seen it anywhere else so I guess maybe it was
a failed pilot program or something.

~~~
buckminster
Tesco in the UK has this in my local store. I don't live in a hotbed of
innovation so I assume it's nationwide.

Edit: it's called 'Scan as You Shop' and is offered in about 500 stores.

~~~
londons_explore
It's kinda rubbish when you buy an item without a barcode...

------
elil17
Genuine question, how will this work for people who cover their faces (eg
religious or medical reason)? Will those people just not be able to shop?

~~~
mayank
Face recognition is not really used here. It's more object detection and
tracking, along with a bunch of other tricks (based on visiting the Go store
in SF).

------
gmadsen
I didn't think it was legal to not have an option for a printed receipt,
unless these kiosks have that feature which they didn't mention.

------
AndrewUnmuted
What great timing. This is being introduced just as the entire global public
becomes nervous about entering enclosed rooms populated with strangers.

------
hansdieter1337
Yay more mass surveillance. Interesting how they avoid to mention anything
regarding cameras and face recognition on this website. Not sure if that’s
even legal.

If shops adapt this, Amazon will have your name, address (credit card), a
video of you and whoever you are with, and knows all the stuff you bought.
Great for advertisement and law enforcement.

------
buboard
What's the point of this? Dont' people want to know how much they are being
charged on the way out? What problem is this tech solving?

------
lqet
This will still be slower than the cashiers at Aldi.

------
Schwolop
When I was in my younger university days, I ran the juggling club for a few
years. One of our favourite gags was to “flashmob” a grocery store and juggle
various fruits between each other. We’d gradually bring more and more of the
supposed onlookers into the act, culminating into perhaps six people juggling
30 fruits.

I really want to see how they handle _that_ edge-case!

------
petilon
I suspect Amazon will not be licensing this as a traditional tech license --
they are more likely to take a percentage of your revenue. Just like their
online store. Amazon gains in two ways: (1) percentage of your revenue and (2)
data such as what is selling well in your store, which they will then use to
compete against you. Just like their online store.

------
Zack-sgu
Interested to see how this works with allowing people to pay with cash and
other non-credit methods.

A few regions have started passing laws banning cashless establishments for
being exclusionary towards people without bank accounts, or who use
alternative banking sources (In NYC it's something like 11% and 22%
respectively). I would expect that trend to continue.

------
sayhar
Is it just me, or does anyone find the fact that this is technically possible
(to this level of precision) just ... terrifying?

------
Consultant32452
Fantastic. Right now I can pull up my Walmart app and see every receipt from a
Walmart big box or grocery store from the last several years. There's even a
picture of the thing I bought. I can't get this with Google play. I assume
I'll get this with Amazon pay and then maybe the other payment networks will
up their game.

------
uoaei
One more step to worldwide Social Credit Score.

~~~
turc1656
Pelican Cove is being built as we speak.

------
gok
Having used it a few times, it is really cool. I noticed my local Amazon Go
locations never really had items worth stealing out on the shelves though,
which make me wonder if they're not actually confident in its performance yet.
I'd be curious to see if they're willing to give retailers some kind of loss
prevention SLA.

------
ramon
I would love to test this in Brazil because people here are creative with
stealing so it would be very interesting to see how this would rollout with
people trying to say they didn’t pick things up or things in that manter,
WhatsApp had e o change a lot because here in Brazil people abuse the security
aspects to the maximum.

------
mollems
I'm a technologist, but I can't help but be reminded of the novel _This
Perfect Day_ by Ira Levin here.

(Especially once you replace the question "do I have enough money to walk out
the door with this item?" with "is my government-calculated social reputation
score high enough to walk out the door with this item?")

------
bogomipz
What is the target market for this tech then? I feel like grocery stores and
pharmacies have already invested somewhat heavily in self checkout kiossk and
may also be leery of having Amazon tech in their stores. Is the target market
retail 2.0 then, where you design a store from the ground up with this tech?

------
erjjones
It will be interesting to see what other types of new technology (good & bad)
emerge from this.

Such as: New rfid (or image) spoofing tech, etc.

-or-

Stories "Just walk out" store forgot to activate rfid tags on some product and
customers walked out w/ (x) number of items for free.

This will be interesting to see how it plays out.

------
Wobbley
I know one of the big Norwegian retailers (Coop) have 2 prototype stores
running in Oslo with the "Walk out" concept. I mean I am already giving my
data to them in order to receive actual money back and coupons, so at least I
get something back.

------
r00fus
I was hoping Apple would implement something like this given they had
scan+pay-on-iPhone back in 2010 for Apple Stores.

I have to imagine there are considerable roadblocks for theft prevention and
training your shoppers.

Ambiguity turns off paying shoppers and provides an opportunity for thieves.

------
dunham
At least half of the stuff I buy at the store is sold by weight, how is this
going to work?

~~~
hacker_newz
This. So far Amazon Go has just been a bodega disguised as a gimmick.

------
zepto
“My client believed it was a ‘just walk out’ store, your honor”

-Attorney defending future shoplifting case.

------
maddyboo
> Our tech - your stores

“Our tech - your x” is Amazon’s core underlying strategy for market dominance.

------
mayank
It's a little unfortunate that the FAQ doesn't address the "hey, I didn't take
that but you billed me for it!" issue. How will the store adjudicate disputes?
Video replays of the item being put in the cart?

------
MichaelMoser123
do i understand correctly that this only works if all items in the store get
an RFID tag? i don't think that every banana and every tomato will come with
an rfid tag, so cashiers at food retailers are probably safe, for now;

However they might create a special section in the supermarket reserved for
the grocery and have everything else in a section with rfid tags, that would
result in fewer jobs as cashiers.

however they might have to add people for adding rfid tags to each and every
item in the store. Interesting how much every one of these options would cost
them.

------
nerdponx
I like how they avoid explaining how this actually works. Does it use a mobile
app? The MAC address of your cell phone? The RFID chip in many credit cards?
Facial recognition? Some combination of the above?

------
tompetry
"Just walk out"? Figured this was going to be a site dedicated to some sort of
protest about Amazon. I think a re-brand is in order.

That aside, would retailers adopt this from Amazon, of all tech companies?

------
soheil
This isn't new. Video from 2016:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkMwfp8_dcs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkMwfp8_dcs)

------
amelius
It seems like lately the technological advancements are getting ever smaller.
They are just conveniences at this point.

And by the way, what happened after Amazon's announcement of drone delivery?

------
HumblyTossed
I actually like this idea[0]. I have a couple of tweaks I'd like to see.

I'd like to walk in, swipe my CC and get a QR code printout. At any point, I
should be able to scan the QR code with my phone and see a receipt showing
what I have in my cart and how much it will cost me as well as my status
(in/out of the store). Once I leave the store, I should be able to scan the QR
and get my final receipt. If there's an issue, I can turn right around and get
it resolved.

I don't want to have to deal with going to a kiosk unless I need help.

Also, I don't like that this is an Amazon thing.

[0] As an option. I don't want this to be the way of the future.

------
zadkey
Something I didn't see in the QA section,

What happens when someone enters the store with a $20 prepaid visa card and
then walks out with 200+ dollars of stuff?

------
danielovichdk
Tell me how the fuck Jeff Bezos can charge me for 2 liters of milk in my
corner shop, without installing some freaky app or device that keeps track of
whatever.

Fuck that. And fuck Jeff too. I don't want him to know what I shop. I don't
want anyone to know, perhaps except Visa because that's like inevitable.

In Europe at least we have checkout counters where we can check out shit
ourselves, from store, without some big corporation in between. Because we
don't want that.

These fuckery companies don't pay tax here, they don't add to the community.
All they fucking do is take and take.

Get the fuck outta here

------
johnmarcus
Yay! The big brother distopia I always wanted! Finally.

------
iandanforth
"Since launching Amazon Go years ago ..."

Two. They launched _two_ years ago. They're trying way too hard to make it
seem like proven technology.

------
JoshTko
This is the best informational page layout that I've seen in a while. Many
products/services would benefit from following suit.

------
stok3d
I wonder how this "who has what in their virtual shopping carts" tech holds up
when customers get into a brawl over toilet paper.

~~~
Keverw
Yeah I can think of plenty edge cases for something like this but it's a neat
idea in theory.

I was wondering how it'd handle someone using a prepaid card or a credit card
without enough credit left on it... Like some first credit cards might be as
low as like 500 so if people bought other things also could see some people
getting close... Does it contact you to pay up if some reason it couldn't
charge you fully or is there some sort of indicator before you walk out?

------
yosito
Honest question, once stores start using this, what's to stop people from
walking out with unpaid merchandise?

------
macspoofing
I'm in for that. I found myself actually liking those automatic checkouts that
are now at most grocery stores. This is even better.

------
surround
Are retailers willing to fund their biggest competitor? Probably not - Walmart
built their own cloud to avoid using Amazon’s.

------
SN76477
I believe that frictionless purchase encourage the wrong type of behavior.

May be good for the businesses but it isn’t good for the people.

------
wombat-man
I'd love to see this at airports or something. Kind of hard to imagine in a
real supermarket but maybe someday.

~~~
barrkel
City centre shops (downscaled versions of the big chains like Sainsburys,
Tesco) in London are almost like this today; you walk in, gather what you want
and pay using self-service check-out. There's no more than one or two cashiers
but perhaps a dozen self-service checkouts. There's no interaction with
anyone.

------
k__
Good idea.

The self checkouts I see here simply don't cut it.

Don't know if people are just too dumb for them or the machines are too flakey

------
sungju1203
please hit me up on LinkedIn if anyone is trying to do startup with JWO
technology! I would love to connect. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-
hur-174101124/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-hur-174101124/)

------
fallat
This is going to be insanely successful.

~~~
OrangeMango
Perhaps. You could also interpret this in non-positive ways:

* The technology investment isn't going to pay off unless they scale up to thousands of stores very quickly.

* Running a small convenience store is boring and not very profitable. The technology is cool though, so lets see if someone else is will to do all the boring stuff while we focus on the interesting things.

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gwbas1c
What if I want a _paper_ receipt? What if I want to pay in cash? What if I
want to confirm that the system correctly tallied what I'm buying?

I'm extremely skeptical of email receipts because I don't want to be enrolled
in someone's daily SPAM list.

IMO, I'm going to avoid shops that use this system until they're correctly
regulated.

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lucasmullens
"Just walk out" is what workers do to protest Amazon. What a strange name
choice.

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almost_usual
An obvious question I have is theft. How do you prevent it?

Also, how do you sell items that are locked up?

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Reason077
But officer! I thought this store had Amazon's "Just walk out" technology!

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ajayyy
I wonder how you pay with cash. Don't they legally have to accept cash?

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mister_hn
I wonder how burglars or shoplifters will take advantage of this thing

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jehon11
is it just me? or is this website really bland by 2020 standards? That could
be a good thing but I kind of expected more for a major product from Amazon

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apacheCamel
Somewhat related: Initially, I thought this was about the walk out protests
happening (over politics and environmental concerns) at some big tech
companies. I had some pretty big questions on why Amazon wanted a piece of
that market.

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tommoor
So how long until this is implemented in WholeFoods? :)

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thallukrish
So Amazon can now control the brick and mortar as well.

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Ericson2314
...of the workplace

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crobertsbmw
Am I the only one worried that facial recognition is a huge part of their
technology and they are going to be violating all sorts of privacy concerns?

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deegles
What evidence is there of Amazon misusing the data they have? Of all the big
data leaks in the last, say, ten years, how many have been from Amazon? I’d be
much more worried about the security practices of the bank your credit card is
attached to (have you looked at the data sharing terms?), your credit history
(Equifax...), the thousands of security cameras already in stores and streets,
or your phone carrier (see many examples of location data being shared or
sold), or you maybe have a browser extension or two that has access to your
browsing history...

I agree that Amazon has access to a lot of data, and will have more with this
system, but they’ve been remarkably good at stewarding it so far. There are
much bigger fish to fry in terms of data privacy right now.

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sktrdie
What if I walk in without a credit card?

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MivLives
They have a cash option apparently. I know some US places have a law against
places that don't take cash.

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korijn
It also eliminates more human contact.

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Dahoon
Quick, invest in video surveillance.

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skizhak
and near in future one day amazon will say to the business owner - "just walk
out"

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vira28
one thing I wanted to say. Man, Amazon loves dogfooding.

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undefined-1
This sounds completely dystopian from a privacy standpoint.

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allovernow
>We only collect the data needed to provide shoppers with an accurate receipt.
Shoppers can think of this as similar to typical security camera footage.

Well somehow I suspect that's a little misleading.

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kaiabwpdjqn
anyone know if this tech can handle adversarial images? Is it even computer
vision based?

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m0zg
I heard CA had legalized "just walk out" technology state wide for up to $950
in shoplifted goods a few years ago?

[https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/shoplifting-
cal...](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/shoplifting-california-
prop-47-reduced-penalties/)

