←back to thread

Amazon Go

(amazon.com)
1247 points mangoman | 7 comments | 05 Dec 16 14:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.698s | source | bottom
Show context
Someone1234 ◴[05 Dec 16 15:26 UTC] No.13105907[source]▶
Companies have been discussing "checkout-less" stores since forever, but nobody has been brave enough to do it due to the perceived threat of shoplifting.

And while shoplifting is a legitimate threat, are non-shoplifters going to be turned into shoplifters without a checkout? Are normal shoplifters stopped by checkouts? These are the core questions, and until it is tested nobody will know for sure.

Target is getting awfully close to this. With their Cartwheel app you're meant to scan all your items as you shop (so it auto-applies coupons and discounts); but they haven't taken it to the next logical step and allowed you to provide your Cartwheel output at the checkout for checking out.

I will say that the way Target has implemented smartphone barcode scanning makes me think that there might be a future in all this. It is extremely painless, they just need to stop kicking you out of the scan screen when it finds a discount (i.e. it doesn't kick you out if no discount is found, but does when a discount IS found, that's problematic for efficiency reasons).

replies(16): >>13105954 #>>13105966 #>>13105972 #>>13105973 #>>13105976 #>>13105985 #>>13106034 #>>13106042 #>>13106127 #>>13106136 #>>13106193 #>>13106201 #>>13106208 #>>13106432 #>>13107504 #>>13108179 #
bbrks ◴[05 Dec 16 15:30 UTC] No.13105954[source]▶
In the UK, Tesco have been running a 'Scan as you Shop'[0] thing for a couple of years now. Customers pick up a scanner as they enter, scan their items as they go into their cart, and they have special checkouts which read your scanner.

There's a random chance that your scanner will be audited by a human against the contents of your shopping cart. Usually the first time you use it, then it backs off.

[0] http://www.tesco.com/scan-as-you-shop/

replies(8): >>13105978 #>>13105999 #>>13106011 #>>13106021 #>>13106082 #>>13106184 #>>13106261 #>>13106267 #
1. leesalminen ◴[05 Dec 16 15:36 UTC] No.13106021[source]▶
Stop & Shop in the NE US released this in ~2006
replies(3): >>13106109 #>>13106153 #>>13106196 #
2. sqeaky ◴[05 Dec 16 15:45 UTC] No.13106109[source]▶
Where is that at? I am Omaha and google maps did not show a "Stop & Shop".
replies(2): >>13106122 #>>13106375 #
3. maxerickson ◴[05 Dec 16 15:46 UTC] No.13106122[source]▶
It's a grocer in the Northeast.
4. ◴[05 Dec 16 15:49 UTC] No.13106153[source]▶
5. coleca ◴[05 Dec 16 15:54 UTC] No.13106196[source]▶
I worked on that project (Shopping Buddy) and a few later iterations of it. This was before the iPad, we had these huge IBM super rugged tablets on the carriages. We used something like Zigbee to triangulate the precise location of the carriage in the aisle, so we could tell whether the cart was at the beginning, middle or end of aisle 5 or aisle 6 and target ads appropriate for where you were. There was a small scanner for you to scan your groceries as you went. It was ridiculously expensive to outfit one store w/the tech so we ended up with a simpler version using Motorola MC70 handheld scanner guns and ditched the exact triangulation and instead went to more generic stuff where we would just check which AP you were connected to so we would know which third of the store you were on (produce, frozen foods, or middle of the store). That system then got ported to iOS and Android so you could use your phone instead of the scanner. The original version despite its issues was pretty advanced for the time (mid 2000s).

They still have the mobile / MC70 version rolled out to the entire chain now, it's very successful from what I hear.

replies(1): >>13106367 #
6. leesalminen ◴[05 Dec 16 16:11 UTC] No.13106367[source]▶
Awesome insight! This is why I love HN.

My mother makes uses of it every week and gloats that we don't have the tech available here in Boulder (a tech hub).

7. leesalminen ◴[05 Dec 16 16:11 UTC] No.13106375[source]▶
Good one :). NE = North East, not Nebraska in this instance though I can see the confusion.