For long grocery queues Amazon has a fresh cure: a mobile shopping cart.
The cart, introduced Tuesday by Amazon, utilizes screens, sensors and a scale to instantly identify what customers are falling into. It keeps a list and only charges their Amazon wallet as they exit the shop. They don’t require a cashier.
It’s Amazon’s new effort to shake up the grocery business and offer a workaround to lengthy checkout lines. The online retail giant launched a cashier-less store in Seattle that uses ceiling cameras and sensors to watch what shoppers are buying and billing them before leaving.
Amazon.com Inc. has about 25 cashierless retail stores with identical equipment, too.
The cart, dubbed the Amazon Dash Truck, would first arrive later this year at a nearby Los Angeles store that Amazon opens. The store does have cashiers, but Amazon said it decided to have a way for customers to skip the queues. If Amazon is marketing the product, it may be available in the future at Amazon’s Whole Foods supermarket chain or other outlets, although there are no proposals for that right now. Several companies now produce identical smart shopping carts which are being evaluated in supermarkets, but others need to check grocery stores before dropping them in.
The Amazon cart does not have testing. A panel near the handle shows what is being paid, and when it is being deducted from the account, the cart will sense it. And there’s even a means of letting the driver know whether you decide to put a sweater or bag into the driver and you don’t have to push it.
