AWS Just Walk Out Technology
aws.amazon.comMeh - I was excited by JWO but it now looks like self-checkout will win because it works pretty well these days, and it handles all the corner cases including product sold by weight, large items, identical-looking items (common in grocery), etc.
With self-checkout, you don't need an account which is crucial for travelers. Self-checkout also supports cash for the unbanked.
I've tried SC in multiple countries, just hit the button for English, scan, scan, scan, weight, scan, scan, scan, checkout, touch my credit card, go.
Late night in Stockholm train station, I bought one bottle of fizzy water and checkout added 30 seconds or so.
Obviously, from place to place you sometimes get "rough edges" with mis-scans etc but JWO has its own problems.
I'm not even sure how much floor space JWO saves vs self-checkout.
I've stopped using self-checkout because I always run into troubles. In one store when I accidentally double-scan an item, I have to press the button to call someone, and it takes 5 minutes for someone to show up.
In another store you need to place your groceries onto a weighing shelf, and somehow I couldn't figure out what to do to make the machine happy.
For produce and pastries that don't have a bar code you have to navigate through a stupid hierarchical menu and I just couldn't find some of the items...
At some point these machines hopefully will improve (just like automatic ticket machines have improved), but for now I still prefer waiting in a normal checkout line.
> I've stopped using self-checkout because I always run into troubles.
Kroger's self-checkout is absolutely obnoxious, they've hooked it into some machine-vision stuff to try and stop you from stealing, but it literally stops you about every third item no matter what you do.
I can't really fathom how you can include "scan, scan, scan, weight, scan, scan, scan, checkout, touch my credit card, go" in your comment and consider that comparable to "leave." For routine grocery shopping the technology is incredible.
That said, I'll grant that it's also creepy AF. The bigger issue for me, though, is that Amazon is so fucking awful at physical retail inventory management (both the selection of items that should be there and the selection of items actually available for purchase) that the Go Grocery in Seattle went from being "this is how I buy groceries" to "there is zero chance they'll have most, let alone all, of the items on my incredibly boring grocery list."
Amazon still wins, though... I end up walking the other direction and going to Whole Foods...
The selection is directly tied to the JWO technology which almost by definition gets confused by brands whose product line labels (e.g. flavors) are too similar, which is the common case not the exception. Sure, they have the same price but then the breaks automated reordering from the DC. The only solution is to not carry variations of a product, which then leads to crappy selection. Fine for a convenience store not fine for general purpose grocery.
source: I owned a chain of specialty food retailers as well as a warehouse, and this issue even stymied humans at times!
Don't the cameras pay close attention to the grabbing of the product?
> With self-checkout, you don't need an account which is crucial for travelers.
At non-Amazon branded JWO locations you insert a credit card in the machine when you walk in, no account needed. I recently encountered one like this at an airport.
I just returned from a trip in Asia where 50% of machines did not accept any of my cards. In one case (parking garage) I asked a passerby to pay for me with their card, and gave them cash.
While I enjoy that I can pay everything by card at home, and mostly stopped going to the handful of places that don't accept cards, I do appreciate the fact that cash is usually available as a backup.
Many American credit cards don't support some of the security features required in other countries. For example they might not support the card itself knowing your available balance so that small transactions like parking can be done entirely offline, and the parking garage collecting a cryptographic proof from your card that you have $3.50 available in your account. Remember that to do this, your card has to offer such proof in whatever currency the parking garage uses.
How can this work if you have online or recurring charges? It seems like a lot of work to still not know the balance.
It isn't a perfect system. The bank guarantees they will pay for any charges that the card digitally signed, and the bank will take any losses.
Most banks typically authorize the card to make ~$150 of payments or so offline. Anything bigger, or for risky customers or those with a low balance, it needs to be an online transaction.
The benefit of offline transactions is they can be done in under half a second, compared to the 5-10 seconds online transactions take. For things like opening the barrier in a car park, 10 seconds is too long.
I was at Kastrup (Copenhagen) and saw a 7-11 Go self-serve. I didn't get to try because it hadn't opened (I was on an early flight), but I can see this working.
Good point, hasn't seen this but makes sense. Obviously both JWO and SC depend on credit cards being accepted.
> I'm not even sure how much floor space JWO saves vs self-checkout.
Not sure JWO is about saving floor space. It's more about saving the customer time. A grocery line on a Saturday afternoon is frustrating. Imagine Costco having this.
JWO works with products sold by weight (like produce -- it uses sensor fusion with weight sensors), large items and identical-looking items too. I tried it last week at Amazon Fresh. It works.
I worry how accurate it is. An error of just a few grams overcharging a customer will get Amazon in trouble with regulators. While just a few grams less cuts out the whole profit margin.
Remember that the Amazon weighing shelves have to deal with someone putting produce across two shelves (ie. A an apple balanced so it is partially weighed by one shelf and partially by another).
Since the shelves are large (ie. 10 foot tall), they also have to deal with the buffeting air from air conditioners in the shop, while still detecting someone taking a 5 gram SIM card pack...
> Late night in Stockholm train station, I bought one bottle of fizzy water and checkout added 30 seconds or so.
This seems like a situation that would be improved for all concerned parties if there was a vending machine in the station.
Well, a vending machine would have limited inventory. Whereas you can buy a lot more stuff at a store. I was at Stockholm Centralstation and used the self-checkout there too -- it works fine if you have less than 5 items (which you typically would).
The Co-op grocery store in Stockholm Centralstation also has self-checkouts but it's self-checkout is a lot slower when you have 20-30 items in your cart, and you have to catch a train.
> a vending machine would have limited inventory. Whereas you can buy a lot more stuff at a store.
You bought one bottle of water. You're not benefiting from the store. The store owner isn't benefiting from you using his store instead of his vending machine. Store customers aren't benefiting from you using the store instead of the vending machine.
If it works in the Shanghai subway (daily ridership roughly ten times the population of Stockholm), it'll work in the Stockholm stations too.
I think you’re replying to the wrong person.
Also, people usually buy stuff like a drink, magazine, chewing gum, books, maybe other snacks from a store. Not sure how a single vending machine would be able to vend all that. And even if you could — I’ve seen Japanese vending machines — you’d only be able to carry a very small selection.
Can't argue with US it seems ;-)
What's wrong with the usual check-out process? It also creates extra jobs for people that, most probably, would have difficulties finding new ones (some of the lady cashiers at the super-market close to me are well into their 50s). Plus, it forces you to have a little human interaction, that hasn't killed anyone, quite the contrary. More human interactions, even with strangers, less "what pills should I take to make my life less miserable".
They could add back in the job where someone else presses the button in the elevator for you, that would also create jobs.
No need to be whimsical about it. But, yes, that's par for the course coming from an IT-focused forum, to hell with people in need of low-paying jobs, and we also don't want to speak with them, our lives are way too important for that.
I feel like we should be slightly more ambitious with ensuring the wellbeing of people than keeping around pointless jobs? At the least, if we're stuck on the government ensuring that there are jobs of some sort, it seems like jobs say more actively better the community (say library staff, community center staff, etc) would be much more fulfilling?
> around pointless jobs?
"Pointless jobs" for whom? It definitely puts food on the table for said persons' families, that is definitely not "pointless". Or do you think a lady in her 50s will just hop into any job at her discretion? (no, "community stuff" will just not cut it, you need at least a university diploma for that).
And this comes after those discussions on the tens of thousands of pointless jobs inside FAANG companies, a discussion that we had a few days ago. Jobs which are paid very handsomely, btw.
If we are compelling companies to pay for people that they would otherwise not, that seems like a job without use.
Give people welfare without giving them jobs that are drags on progress.
> (no, "community stuff" will just not cut it, you need at least a university diploma for that)
Give me a break. The world functioned fine before any and every random job required a university diploma and would be better off if people stopped asking for them. You would think on a site worshipping the famed hacker-without-a-degree this opinion would be absent.
> Or do you think a lady in her 50s will just hop into any job at her discretion?
Come on, this is an obvious strawman
Ideally, as more jobs are automated and less work is needed, a robust welfare state would provide people with income so they wouldn’t need to do jobs that exist purely to employ someone.
Many people who work such jobs are mothers who wish they could spend more time with their children, adults who wish they could care for an aging parent, students who should have more time studying and socializing, etc.
“Creates extra jobs” has a pretty direct linkage to “drives higher prices”.
If the job is extra/not needed, some consumers will rationally prefer to self-serve (for whatever connotation if that you prefer).
Then those "not needed" will rationally (and in many instance literally) kick those rational consumers in the head, in order to have something to put on the table. It's as simple as that. And then it becomes a race of "let's better fund the police so that we'll keep the not needed at bay" vs "maybe it's just not good policy to kick the not needed while they're down, maybe it's not all their fault".
We should be expecting a smaller proportion of the population to be working in most sub-sectors of the economy each year, as new, innovative areas provide opportunities for relatively inexperienced people with high aptitude to work more productively and earn higher wages. It's fine having people bagging groceries at supermarket checkouts, but that isn't really going to work out in the coming years if those same people are going to be demanding state-of-the-art medical treatments, developed-world retirement benefits and cutting-edge consumer goods.
While we're at it, let's add staff to "checkout" code from source control. :-)
Decathlon has RFID based, no-scan self checkout. You put all the items in a bin then pay and leave. Worked really well the few times I’ve used it
I avoid using self checkout because I don't want to perform work that ought to be performed by the business. When did I become an employee?
Typically, in my situation self checkout is substantially faster than waiting for someone to do it for me.
I don’t see why I should stand in line when I could exert myself for 90 seconds and be out of the store 5-10 minutes quicker.
When you traveled to the store, walked the aisles etc. For no hassle, use ecommerce/delivery.
I agree and start to do this always now.
> it works pretty well these days
Maybe in select stores?
I personally experience more headache than great UX using self checkout in most stores.
Expect to have to install an app for every store you want to go into over the next few years with all the accompanying snooping. This tech is a wet dream for retailers.
Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.
You mean like trying to drive through Germany in an electric car and having multiple standards/vendors for the chargers each with their own app, no cash, no maestro or credit card option. Especially funny when in an area with poor mobile reception (basically rendering the charger somewhat useless).
Having these competing non-standards is a pita for customers as well as for adoption. I would think that it would be the same for jwo.
So far those EV chargers are mostly funded by government incentives and store owners trying to attract rich clients.
When the EV charger industry gets cutthroat competitive on the service itself, the requirements to use an app will probably vanish because they don't want you to pass on their charger just because of the friction of signing up.
And then expect Apple to come along with a solution that 1. Protects your privacy and 2. Locks you into their ecosystem even more
There’s not much room for privacy when you can only shop there by scanning a barcode linked to your account and having cameras pointed at you that are likely reading your emotions/seeing if you pick up an item then put it back (as the OP pointed out).
Sure although it is worth noting that Apple's privacy protections are more of a legal framework than a technical one.
I used to resist getting a store card for this very reason, until I realize that they can track me through the credit card that I used anyway. This requires the self checkout machine to record the credit card number from the POS though - does the POS expose this information?
The POS can store anything that can trace a customer. It wouldn't be hard to derive a unique token from the credit card information, so it doesn't have to deal storing anything sensible.
> Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.
Not just that - also track your eyes to see what else you've anticipated.
This tech can be a wet dream for retailers but not if Amazon is providing it.
Retailers hate Amazon up to the point to avoid AWS - there are exceptions - to any of their cloud infrastructure.
Hate to admit it, but if it saves me time on checkout, they can have that information.
That's a really unfortunate name considering their reputation for employees walking out on the job.
> 60 percent of respondents state that long wait times to check out are a major concern while shopping in a store. The report also revealed that 80 percent of retail executive respondents believe that smart checkout is one of the most important solutions to invest in over the next five years.
The local Kroger instances here have these handheld things you can use to scan items as you put them in your cart rather than at a checkout station.
I don't exactly see a large number of people using them. Like, I think I might have seen one, once?
Walmart+ app allows you to scan items with your phone as you pick them up. Then, when you reach the self-checkout, you just scan a QR code and you are "checked out". I wish you didn't need to do the self-checkout thing, and could just finalize the transaction entirely from your phone, but other than that it is pretty good.
When this was piloted years ago at Sam’s Club (subsidiary of Walmart Inc) it was possible, but only because their door team was able to scan it before you walked out.
This is extremely popular in the UK - all of the major supermarkets offer it.
Some of them also let you use your own smartphone to do the scanning.
It became more popular in the pandemic, as only interacting with your own device reduces the amount of contact you have with other people and things they have been touching.
> I don't exactly see a large number of people using them. Like, I think I might have seen one, once?
It's the wrong UX. I'm not sure I would scan my cart items -- that's making me do extra work.
> 60 percent of respondents state that long wait times to check out are a major concern while shopping in a store.
There is an easy fix: hire people to ensure that wait time is minimal by opening as much checkout isles as possible. But in the economists wet dream the automated, humanless solution wins by being cheaper.
> The report also revealed that 80 percent of retail executive respondents believe that smart checkout is one of the most important solutions to invest in over the next five years.
Absolutely, because you have no need to pay additional squishy meat sacks when people/shoppers can do the work themselves with self checkout. Externalise the cost onto the customer.
> But in the economists wet dream the automated, humanless solution wins by being cheaper.
Because the consumers will, usually, choose to go to the cheaper store.
> Absolutely, because you have no need to pay additional squishy meat sacks when people/shoppers can do the work themselves with self checkout. Externalise the cost onto the customer.
As opposed to the "squishy meat"'s salary, which is paid by... whom?
Also, I'd say that the actual scanning is not the most "labor-intensive" / annoying part of the checkout process, but moving the products out of the basket, onto the cash register, back in the bag. And even with regular checkout, the customer does that. With self-checkout, you can actually do the scanning while moving the product from the basket to your bag, which means handling it only once.
I've been impressed by the Amazon Go stores. They seem to work pretty well. I'm glad to see Amazon at least trying to spread this technology. I enjoy using it.
I do think the palm reading thing will be a potential vulnerability in two regards. First, maybe as a "hack". Is there a way to fake the palm scan? Something you could put on your palm to assume someone else's palm print? If I use this service will I have to be concerned with thieves scanning my palm print? Second, I think it will also invoke a "creepiness" concern among the general population when Amazon starts wanting your palm prints.
I am also confused as to why this falls under the AWS umbrella. It seems very unlike other AWS offerings. This requires adding hardware to your store.
AWS appears to be an umbrella for all the B2B stuff that is not B2C/Amazon itself, and in many cases is not directly "web" (see private 5G networks, Snow, Ground Station, etc.)
Hmm, I thought infrastructure components were AWS branded and business services Amazon branded. Like AWS EC2 vs Amazon Quicksight. But then this probably should have been under the Amazon brand so maybe they have another split.
This is not Amazon branded due to optics. Amazon itself is also a store, so it’s competition doesn’t to buy something with the Amazon brand name on it for their key operations.
On the other hand, they may already use AWS which feels like “a company owned by Amazon” rather than Amazon itself.
It's true that some of AWS have "Amazon" in the name, but from what I know they are all under AWS anyway.
"Ship the orgchart".
SNL satire of this:
I'm 90% sure Amazon paid SNL to make this ad (SNL does paid brand integration in various skits, see Tom Scott's video on product placement for other examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-x8DYTOv7w). It's a spoof commercial where the product advertised isn't what's being made fun of. The set is unusually authentic to actual Amazon Go stores, down to the "just walk out" logo signage, and the loud and clear message of the ad is that you should stop worrying and trust Amazon. They're lampshading people's distrust of automation, especially in a liberal context of racial equity, and demonstrating that actually Keenan was really silly for thinking a computer would be racist.
I was thinking it looked way too much like the real thing. As soon as I caught on that it wasn't making fun of the actual service, yeah, I started thinking it was a paid spot as well.
Corporate AI would never be racist. Just ask Microsoft Tay, or Meta's latest chatbot, or Google Photos, or GPT-3 prior to hard-coded tweaks...
Same with Alexa silver. That being said it was pretty funny. https://youtu.be/YvT_gqs5ETk
Real-life satire of this:
This is the best example as to why DEI for companies matters. A room full of white & asian men would likely not pick up on this prior to the launch.
Obviously white and Asian men are capable of realizing that customers might feel like they are stealing items (or will be accused of stealing) in the Go store. It is ridiculous to think such an obvious concern would be invisible to people based on their race or gender.
It's also very strange to think that team members should be responsible for speaking for their race. Imagine if your team had a black engineer and your team expected him to explain to everyone "the black perspective" or "how will black people think about this". An individual doesn't represent anyone beyond themselves and, ironically, it is racist to think otherwise. A black engineer is there to do the job of an engineer, not tell you what his racial group will think. If you want to know what a demographic will think of something you use surveys, focus groups, and market research - DEI is not relevant.
No one is responsible for representing any of their background but you work with a diverse group of people because different people bring different ideas to the table
You cannot do focus groups for issues you don’t even know about. Race isn’t the only factor here — someone who grew up on a farm is going to have different things to say than someone that grew up in the city.
My impression is that you are trying to be racially sensitive or politically correct. You are using terms like DEI and saying it is important. But what you are writing comes across as very racist. "We have to have a black person on the team because black people think different!" No, your race and gender don't determine your beliefs or perspectives.
The way to find out what different groups will think about your product is to survey representative samples - not to hope that the person of background X on your team could speak for all X.
You can use focus groups for issues you don't know about - absolutely. That's one of the main benefits. Get a group to use the Go store. Ask about what they thought. Ask the people who used it a lot and those who used it a little - why did you use it so much/little. You find that some people are made uncomfortable because it feels like stealing. There - if you didn't realize that was an issue before, now you do.
>You are using terms like DEI and saying it is important. But what you are writing comes across as very racist.
This as DEI working as designed. The latent condescension in the corporate propaganda is apparent and offensive when verbalized. If you speak it aloud like the GP did, you are chastised. In a professional setting that's an effective humiliation ritual. It strongly discourages you from speaking up again in the future. Eventually you notice more flaws in the DEI sales pitch, but by then you've learned your lesson. You stay quiet. Thus the worker is controlled and the corporate propaganda is shielded from criticism.
As posted below, Amazon has been caught measuring workplace diversity and correlating it negatively with unionization and worker solidarity. To them, forced diversity is a net benefit. But the downsides of forced diversity are never to be mentioned by the workers themselves, who are irredeemable racists if they say what Amazon internally acknowledges to be true:
>you work with a diverse group of people because different people bring different ideas to the table
This is sometimes true, but quite often it is ownership-class propaganda to depress wages and prevent worker solidarity. For example:
>Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity and lower employee compensation, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers' compensation claims, according to [Whole Foods'] documents.
They’d probably pilot the store in a couple target markets to find issues, then prioritize and solve issues. I don’t think skin color or gender makes one worse at launching products.
Great idea - let me install of this stuff to let you suck analytics out of my store and then compete with me in two years.
Yeah, no thanks.
social credit scores, sorry, I mean personal carbon scores...
Many commenters haven't read the blog post. A retailer app or Amazon One account is not necessarily required. From my understanding, you can simply enter with a credit or debit card.
> Consumers can enter a Just Walk Out technology-equipped store using one of three methods—method types available can vary by store: (1) Amazon One, a contactless identity service that uses your palm to pay; (2) credit or debit card; or (3) app-based entry, using retailer-branded apps.
As I read this title, for whatever reason, I imagined Walk Out Technology as being some kind of worker’s union SaaS and had to do a double take.
I’m not intending to be unproductively facetious mind you, those types of specialized SaaS offerings that let workers operate and organize and educate should exist, and if AWS ever wanted to spend PR money in the right place… eh? Eh?