In recent news, Amazon has made the decision to discontinue its cashier-less “Just Walk Out” technology at its larger Amazon Fresh grocery stores. Originally introduced in 2016, the technology allowed customers to enter the store, pick up items, and leave without having to go through a traditional checkout process. However, a report in May 2023 revealed that the system actually required 1,000 employees in India to monitor the cameras and ensure that transactions were accurately recorded. Approximately 70% of “Just Walk Out” purchases depended on the overseas workers.
In place of this technology, Amazon will now implement “smart carts” that enable customers to scan items as they shop to skip checkout lines. Additionally, there will be more self-checkout stations available for non-Amazon members at the larger Amazon Fresh stores. This change will only be implemented in the larger Amazon Fresh stores, of which there are around 40 in the U.S. The company plans to continue using the “Just Walk Out” technology in its smaller Amazon Go stores and select Amazon Fresh locations in the U.K.
The decision by Amazon to discontinue its cashier-less “Just Walk Out” technology comes after concerns about privacy and data security were raised by critics of the system. It also follows a report earlier this year that revealed that many of these concerns had not been fully addressed by Amazon’s implementation of this technology. As a result, it appears that customers may be more comfortable with traditional checkout processes moving forward