The first Amazon Fresh supermarket has been set up in just a few weeks just outside Los Angeles in Woodland Hills, California.
“Grocery is a very large consumer sector; by most measures, it’s $ 800 billion in the U.S.,” Jeff Helbling, vice president of Amazon Fresh stores, told CNN Business. “And collectively, we are relatively small in space.”
Including Woodland Hills, Amazon confirmed it opens seven Amazon Fresh stores – four in California and three in Illinois – but has not announced their opening dates. Some of them are only online websites for fulfilling orders for delivery of groceries.
The 35,000-square-foot market in Woodland Hills has departments that are similar to what you would find in your local grocery store – produce, dry goods, fish and meat rooms, as well as prepared food. But the Amazon Fresh store, which has the same name as Amazon’s grocery store, is also loaded with technology.
Inside the store are stationary Amazon Echo Show smart displays that can call Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa, that can help answer customer questions, such as, “Where can I find the mayonnaise?”
The “smart choice” is similar to a single choice convenience store and is equipped with bar code readers, sensors and scales. After using their Amazon app to effectively log in to the cart, customers place one or two shopping bags in the basket. The cart can scan articles with a barcode and weigh barcode-free products like products.
Customers then go through a specific sensor-enabled job that automatically charges the credit card to their Amazon account.
However, the Amazon Fresh stores will have traditional checks and cashiers for customers who choose not to use the Dash Cart or who have larger groceries.
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