Tag Archives: Amazon

Amazon Introduces No-Check-Out Grocery Store

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Colorful Carts, courtesy
Jim

Since 2015 Amazon has been working on providing customers with a fun visit to the grocery store that leaves out entirely the waiting online and bagging of groceries at the checkout. Now the dream is finally a reality.

In Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, customers with Amazon accounts use their smartphones to sign in to use “Dash Carts,” high-tech shopping carts equipped with sensors and cameras with computer vision, and a built-in scale to weigh produce. All the technology is cleverly hidden, so customers feel like they are just shopping, and not part of a sci-fi experiment.

The Dash Cart also has a scanner for coupons, and a display that shows what is in the cart and how much it all will cost when you finally “Just Walk Out.” Removing an item placed in the cart is automatically accounted for in the total, as are the items added to the cart. Not needing to check-out when customers are done shopping also allows them to bag their purchases as they shop.

When it is time to leave, shoppers exit the store vie the Dash Cart lane. Amazon then automatically charges the credit card that is linked to their Amazon account. Receipts are sent via email.

Amazon has been experimenting with the technology at their “Amazon Go” stores, where take-out meals and snacks can be purchased without bothering about a cashier. But the sheer scale of Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” grocery stores makes this a milestone for the company.

“You need to be able to add that and keep track of all of that and it just increases the complexity,” Dilip Kumar, Amazon’s vice president of physical retail and technology, said. “Plus, the weighing component of it also has to be very robust to be able to allow for a very accurate receipt experience for a customer.”

Amazon Opens Grocery with Auto Checkout

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Consumers no longer need to worry about the long lines at the checkout counter, or if they have over 10 items, or cash or credit. Amazon is making buying groceries almost as easy as opening the door to your own pantry, where even the need to open your wallet has been annihilated.

The cashier-strapped supermarket opened this week in Seattle, the birthplace of Amazon. The store bodes well for an enormous disruption in the $800 billion grocery store industry.
Shoppers enter the store and scan their smartphone app. A myriad of cameras and sensors pay careful attention to what comes off the shelves and charges it all to the consumer’s Amazon account.

The new store, named Amazon Go Grocery, is an expansion of Amazon’s two-year-old chain of 25 Amazon Go convenience stores, which are only one-fifth the size of the 10,400 square-foot full-size grocery and stock mostly soft drinks and sandwiches.

Dealing with produce was a special challenge. Consumers like to squeeze their tomatoes and avocados before purchasing, which makes it difficult for the sensors to keep track of what’s what. Nothing is weighed at Amazon Go Grocery. The fruit and veggies are per item, with oranges going for 53 cents apiece, and bananas 19 cents.

Another type of grocery store is in the planning stages by Amazon to open in the Los Angeles area later this year. Amazon says it will not be a cashier-free store, but what it will be is still a secret. The company has also not said whether more Amazon Go Grocery stores are being planned for other locations, and they also say they are not planning to bring autonomous shopping to their 500 Whole Foods groceries, which they purchased in 2017.

Not everything about Go Grocery is an improvement. Shoppers must bag their own groceries as they shop. Also, Amazon has eliminated the friendly butcher, baker, and deli-counter worker. Instead, these items are found pre-packaged in refrigerated shelves.

Helping fellow shoppers can lead to trouble. If someone needs help with an item on a high shelf, if you are taller and get the item down for that person, you will be charged if the person you helped leaves with that item.

With all-new technologies come a few bumps. But overall, this seems to be a positive move forward for the grocery sector.

America’s Second Trillion Dollar Company Emerges

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Jeff Bezos courtesy of
Steve Jurvetson

Coming just a bit more than one month after Apple became the first US publicly traded company to be valued at over $1 trillion, Amazon takes second place in the race to corporate hugeness.

Amazon entered the rarefied atmosphere of trillion-dollar companies when its stock rose 1.9 percent last Tuesday to a value of $2,050.50 per share, just 23 cents beyond what it needed to reach that magic trillion dollar point. The price of Amazon’s stock has climbed by 70 percent so far this year, continuing to explode along with other US stocks in the tech sector. The milestone was fleeting however, when the stock actually closed up only 1.3 percent, not enough to keep it beyond $1 trillion.

Amazon has been doing quite well lately, pulling past other tech major players such as Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Microsoft. Alphabet’s valuation stands at about $840.3 billion, and Microsoft’s at $854.5 billion.

In 1994 Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as an on-line bookseller. The company grew quickly to become one of the US’ most influential companies. Based in Seattle, Amazon is a leader in e-commerce, but also is expanding to other markets such as cloud computing, home security and movie production. Only Walmart hires more people, and this year’s profit so far comes to $4.1 billion. Bezos is also the owner of the Washington Post.

Bezos is the world’s richest person. As a the major beneficiary of the skyrocketing stock price, as of Tuesday, Bezos’ worth is estimated to be $166 billion.

Amazon Wins Luxembourg Business Award

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Photo courtesy
Marco Verch

Mega on-line store Amazon will be the recipient of the coveted Luxembourg-American business award for 2018. The award is given to company’s that are considered to contribute significantly to the European country’s economy.

The award was established in 1999, and every since it has been awarded to manufacturing companies. Amazon is the first service company in the history of the award to be so honored.

Previous winners include Goodyear Rubber & Tire Company, DuPont guardian Industries, Avery Dennison Corporation, and others.

The awards ceremony is scheduled for May 15, 2018 and will take place at the Luxembourg American Chamber of Commerce in New York. Miami University will also be celebrating 50 years of a presence in Luxembourg and will receive an honorary business award for its high standards in its academic, economic and institutional partnerships between Luxembourg and the United States.

It is expected that crown prince Guilaume, crown princess Stéphanie and economy minister Étienne Schneider will be present at the ceremony.

Amazon to Extend Its Loan Program to Sellers

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Beginning later this year Amazon will extend its business loan program to sellers in eight additional countries where credit can make a huge difference in that company’s success. Amazon, the giant on-line retail platform, has had a business loan program for small sellers in just two countries, Japan and the United States. Known as Amazon Lending, this program was launched in 2012 and is run as an invite-only lending program not available to all Amazon sellers.

The new countries which will become part of this unique program are Canada, China, Germany, France, Italy, India, the United Kingdom and Spain. Amazon loans are geared to helping small sellers better compete for new vendors and taking more market share.

Amazon is not alone in introducing loan programs: eBay’s PayPal and Alibaba Group Holdings are also extending credit to help boost their vendor base. Some analysts have voiced skepticism about these trends, saying that retailers do not properly assess the credit market in which the sellers are operating and therefore could be taking on too much risk. In countries like China and India small businesses have high rates of failure.

Amazon said that risk is not a problem for them since they offer loans based on internal data and also because they take loan payments directly from the profits from sales that it pays their sellers.