Can the company that popularized the online shopping cart reinvent the real thing?
Amazon unveiled its first smart grocery cart on Tuesday morning. The new “Dash Cart”, as it is known, uses cameras, sensors, and a scale to automatically detect and record items on a digital screen behind the handle. Technology makes it possible for shoppers to leave the store without going through a traditional payline.
The end result is similar to Amazon Go supermarkets and convenience stores, without the elaborate technical infrastructure of those stores. The Dash Cart works alone, it doesn’t require sensors on the shelves or specialized cameras on top.
In that way, it solves at least part of the mystery of why Amazon has been developing conventional grocery stores without Amazon Go technology.
“We built this predominantly as an alternative to things like express checkout, where you still end up waiting in line, or rummaging through self-pay machines,” Dilip Kumar, Amazon’s vice president of physical sales and technology, said in an interview this week. . “The experience will be designed to be perfect, very convenient, very easy for clients to understand.”
The Dash Cart is slated to debut later this year at the company’s new grocery store in Woodland Hills, California, which is currently being used to fulfill delivery orders.
Unlike Amazon Go technology, the Dash Cart will not completely replace traditional boxes in stores where it is used. Amazon says it is designed for supermarket trips to small and medium businesses. The cart fits in one or two grocery bags.
Amazon is one of the many retail stores and technology companies seeking to streamline the checkout and checkout process in physical stores. These initiatives are driven in part by a search for new cost efficiencies given traditionally low profit margins in the grocery business. The approach has gained additional importance given the requirements for social distancing and contactless transactions due to the global pandemic of COVID-19.
The Veeve smart shopping cart startup, for example, was started in 2018 by a team that includes two former Amazon employees who were among the first to experience Amazon Go technology. They saw an opportunity to bring the shopping experience without pay to a broader market with smart carts.
Meanwhile, Microsoft and Kroger have been testing a system that allows shoppers to scan items with their smartphones as they shop, for a faster checkout experience.
The global smart shopping car market is projected to grow to more than $ 3 billion by 2025, from $ 737 million last year, according to a report by ResearchandMarkets.com.
It wouldn’t be hard to imagine Amazon Dash Cart finally hitting Whole Foods stores. It would be more difficult, but not entirely impossible, to conceive of Amazon licensing the technology to other retailers. It started selling its Amazon Go technology to other companies earlier this year.
But the company does not detail its plans for the Dash Cart beyond the expected debut in southern California later this year.
“We will see where this is going,” Kumar said when asked about those possibilities. “We believe that customers will love this experience, and then we will build from there.”
Privacy and personalized ad targeting are two of the big questions surrounding this type of technology. For example, if a buyer puts a can of tuna in the cart and then takes it out, will that same person later see an ad on Amazon.com suggesting a different brand of tuna? Kumar acknowledged that such targeting is possible “in theory,” but said that is not the Dash Cart approach.
“The goal of the cart is to be able to generate accurate receipts and make sure that we save customers time,” he said.
Another big question is the impact of this type of automation on jobs. On this topic, Amazon’s retail automation has been a lightning rod for criticism.
The International Trade Union and Food Workers Union (UFCW) called Amazon a “clear and present danger to millions of good jobs” when the company launched its first Amazon Go Grocery store earlier this year. Amazon disputed that claim at the time, calling it “incorrect and misleading in suggesting that Amazon destroys jobs.”
The company argues that the smart grocery cart will not reduce the number of employees in the store, compared to similar-sized traditional grocery stores. In addition to having traditional boxes, the company says it will have associates dedicated to helping customers use Dash Carts.
Shoppers using Dash Carts will scan a QR code in the Amazon app to log into the cart before they start. They will be automatically loaded by the system using the card stored in your Amazon account when they go out via a special “Cart Lane”. They will receive a receipt by email after they leave.
Similar to Amazon Go technology, which knows if a product is being replaced on the shelf, Amazon says that the Dash Cart will also detect when items are removed, removing them from the list.
In addition, the cart will integrate with Alexa shopping lists, showing shoppers the items they’ve saved to buy through Amazon’s voice assistant, indicating the aisle in the store where the items are located, and allowing shoppers check articles as they go.
Amazon’s “Dash” brand has previously been used for products that automate e-commerce orders, including the now discontinued Amazon Dash devices and its Amazon Dash replenishment service, which is integrated into home appliances and office equipment, automatically reordering the detergent or ink, for example, when it detects that supplies are running low.
