Amazon plans to open not one, not two, but 3,000 Amazon Go stores by 2021. This would be one of the company's most aggressive moves since its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in 2016. It would also be a big change for the company, as the majority of its revenue has come from online stores.
The first Amazon Go store opened in Seattle in 2016 and relied entirely on automation systems and specially designed software. Since then, Amazon has carefully studied and modified several things. For this reason, it did not rush to open more stores, opening a second one two years later in the same area, followed by a third in Chicago.
But now the company is releasing more information about its stores than it has in the past. According to CEO Jeff Bezos, the content of the stores will vary. Some of them will be fast-food-style, while others will contain more drinks and snacks. If Amazon experiments with multiple types of stores, it could start to pose a threat to all the existing businesses.
The Go store model eliminates employees while maintaining a customer-friendly environment. Customers scan the products they want to buy with a special application on their mobile phone and see their “cart” updated in real time with the total cost of their purchases, where it is automatically paid for when leaving the store. The store, using appropriate sensors, can determine which products are removed from the shelves, keeping product availability constantly updated.
Finally, the idea is attractive to both the customer and Amazon itself as it offers the same goods at lower costs.
