Anyone who has ever gone grocery shopping before surely knows the dilemma of picking the right checkout line to wait in. We decide by the amount of people waiting in a line, the amount of groceries they each have, whether that old lady in front of you is going to pay with a check or not. Well, to the electronic commerce supergiant Amazon, checkout lines and cashiers just don’t belong in the future of shopping. 

Earlier this week, Amazon unveiled a new grocery store in their hometown of Seattle, simply called Amazon Go. The 1800-square-foot space has no cashiers or self-checkout areas, instead shoppers simply grab whatever they want and walk out. The Amazon Go store uses computer vision and an advanced sensor system to detect what you’re taking out of the store. All that has to be done by the consumer is scan their app as they enter the shop. 

From there, customers can wander through the grocery store aisles like always, while the sensors identify the items you decide to take and charges them to your Amazon account as you walk out. The sensor system is even advanced enough to know when you decide to put something back. This eliminates the need to wait in line or use those pesky self-checkout machines, but do these benefits outweigh the negatives for the consumer? 

Most people would probably say yes, but some might not be comfortable with the fact that Amazon could potentially track every item you purchase or even look at. This would enable them to recommend or advertise products that you showed interest in, even if you didn’t purchase them. Additonally, it is probably much easier for customers to mindlessly spend their hard-earned cash when they don’t even have to pull out their wallet.  

 

It might feel like you’re shoplifting at first, but Amazon’s visionary grocery store will likely be standard procedure in the near future. For now, the Amazon Go store is open in beta to Amazon employees, but will be open to the public in early 2017. While the only location is in Seattle for now, you can probably expect more of these futuristic convenience stores to pop up soon in a city near you. 

The first store is located in the heart of Seattle, Washington at 2131 7th Avenue.