Amazon has always wanted to be first to try new shopping concepts. And some of their futuristic ideas have been met with applause. But it seems Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ checkout system hasn’t panned out…
The first Amazon Fresh ‘Just Walk Out’ testbed store…
What was it?
The idea was to give each customer a QR code they would scan to enter the store. All grocery items would have RFIDs attached. And they would be scanned as customers passed through special ‘touchless’ exit wickets. The customer never had to stand in a line at a checkout counter or fumble with cash, credit or debit cards. They just bagged their stuff and walked out. The bill would come later, online. And they would pay online, via their Amazon account.
Just Walk Out was a grand vision, and it embodied a lot of good ideas. But that was 2016 – before COVID and before skyrocketing food prices.
What happened?
Just Walk Out was supposed to bring the convenience of the online shopping cart to the bricks-and-mortar store. All well and good. But…
It seems that, post-COVID, folks just didn’t like the way it worked, anymore. Budget-sensitive shoppers wanted to check individual item prices, and see totals on the spot. Like they used to at conventional supermarkets.
Privacy concerns
Among those was the fact that, in the course of processing their purchases, Amazon would collect detailed data on every item in their cart, from which their preferences could be deduced. That data might be used to offer shoppers individualized deals and make them aware of specials on items they had bought before.
But it would also be easy for Amazon to data-mine the mountains of information they collected. Custom analyses would be able to provide valuable information that product suppliers and manufacturers could use to tweak their product ‘recipes’ and marketing tactics.
And, of course, Amazon would be able to charge hefty prices for such priceless information.
The info would not directly connect individual shoppers with their specific purchase information. But it could offer demographic profiles of who was buying a given product, how often they were buying, and what other products they were buying.
It wasn’t illegal to conduct such analyses. But it probably left a bad taste in the mouths of many shoppers, when they realized what was going on.
What now?
Amazon is spending a lot of money upgrading the shopping carts in its stores. Now, the carts will be equipped with scanners that produce a running list – like you see on self-checkout terminals – of what customers have bought and how much it cost. They call the new vehicles Amazon Dash Carts.
My take
That’s a great idea. But prices at the Amazon supermarkets may go up as a result. And many folks think they’re already too high. Not only that, but to get really good prices, you have to have a Prime membership, and pay with a Prime VISA or Amazon Prime Store Card.
And none of the updates to the scanning system address the controversial privacy questions…
~ Maggie J.