Amazon (AMZN) is pulling back on a system in its physical grocery stores that allows customers a beloved freedom. The retail giant is planning to cut its 8-year-old Just Walk Out system, which gives customers the ability to walk into an Amazon Fresh store (after scanning their card through an Amazon One device) and grab the items they need and walk out without paying a cashier, according to The Information.
Amazon will instead focus on its Dash Carts system, which launched in 2020, where customers can scan items through their carts that are equipped with cameras and barcode scanners. The carts can sense when customers put items in and out of their cart and can even check them out.
The change will mostly affect larger Amazon Fresh stores, while its smaller stores will keep the Just Walk Out system.
The move from Amazon comes after it was revealed that the retailer’s Just Walk Out system was reportedly run by 1,000 people in India who monitored store camera feeds to watch customers as they shop to confirm checkouts are accurate.
This revelation was a stark contrast from the tech many thought was under the hood of the system. Amazon claims that what propels the technology is artificial intelligence that’s “enabled by computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning,” which allows items that customers select in its stores to automatically be detected and charged to a payment method, according to its website.
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Amazon has recently paused its nationwide expansion of Amazon Fresh grocery stores. In an earnings call last year in February, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed that the company won’t open up any new stores until the company sees more favorable results in its grocery segment.
“We’ve decided over the last year or so that we’re not going to expand the physical Fresh doors until we have that equation with differentiation and economic value that we like,” said Jassy during the call.
The announcement came months before Amazon had a class-action lawsuit filed against it for its Just Walk Out system in its Amazon Fresh stores. The lawsuit, which was filed in September in Illinois, claims that the company’s system garners “unparalleled privacy concerns,” as “massive amounts of shopper biometric data are being collected and used by the company to train complex surveillance technology.”
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