What is Amazon Go? Amazon Go Review, Features

Amazon Go is an unmanned convenience store launched by Amazon. The advanced shopping experience of "grab and go, no need to queue" has attracted widespread attention from the industry since its release. Amazon Go has overturned the operating model of traditional convenience stores and supermarkets, using computer vision, deep learning, and sensor fusion technologies to completely skip the traditional cashier checkout process.

Shopping process

When consumers enter Amazon Go to shop, they first need an Amazon account and install the Amazon application on their smartphones. 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.

Technical features

The patent content applied by Amazon for Amazon Go shows that the key technology of this unmanned convenience store concept lies in its special shelves. It calculates who took which item by sensing the relative position between people and shelves and the movement of goods on the shelves. Therefore, when there are many people, the amount of calculation of the system will increase rapidly, and the accuracy of adding goods to the purchase cannot be guaranteed. For example, if two customers reach out in the same direction at the same time, the system may make mistakes when judging who took the goods; if the goods taken from the shelf by the consumer are placed in the non-shelf area of ​​the store, they will also be settled when they walk out empty-handed.

Amazon Go's ceiling is covered with cameras that film customers and the store. Dozens of square white devices hang from the ceiling, using "multiple sensor inputs" like the systems that help self-driving cars recognize people and objects in their field of view.

Social Impact

1. Amazon Go's grab-and-go shopping experience is unprecedented and will undoubtedly have an enormous impact on the retail industry. There are no cashiers and customers can 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 the starting point, traffic will naturally increase under the influence of word-of-mouth effect, thereby attracting more suppliers to join, which will in turn drive further upgrades in user experience. In entering the offline physical store market, Amazon is trying to bring the best feeling of "No Lines. No Checkout.", thus surpassing ordinary grocery stores.

Development History

-On December 5, 2016, Amazon announced the launch of its revolutionary offline physical store, Amazon Go.

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