Amazon Selling Cashierless Tech To Other Retailers

Retail giant Amazon, which has been testing cashierless technology at its Amazon Go convenience stores for more than two years, now plans to sell the tech to other retailers. 

The move was expected, since Amazon's long-standing practice has been to develop and test new technology at its own facilities — such as warehouse tech that facilitates package delivery — and then sell it as a service to third parties, Reuters reports.

Amazon also uses the system, which it calls Just Walk Out, at a larger grocery store (more than 10K SF) that it opened in February in Seattle.

The e-commerce company says other retailers have agreed to buy the technology, and still others are interested, but it has not named any of them, TechCrunch reports.

For interested parties, Amazon has said it will supply the necessary hardware, such as cameras and sensors, as well as software. The system can be set up in a few weeks, according to Amazon.

At Amazon Go stores, an array of cameras and sensors identify what shoppers select and charge appropriately to customers' Amazon accounts. That lets shoppers walk out of the store once they have selected the items, without the intermediary of a cashier.

In an Amazon Go setting, shoppers need to have an Amazon app downloaded to their mobile device. The system can be adjusted, however, so that shoppers merely need a credit or debit card to use cashierless stores.

The technology also enables a longer-term strategy by Amazon to amass data on consumer behavior and preferences. Data collected at Amazon Go stores presumably allows the retail behemoth to better understand its shoppers, and allows Amazon to better anticipate their wants and needs, LoupVentures reports.

It isn't clear who will benefit in that way from the systems that Amazon will sell to other retailers: only those retailers, or as part of the deal to license the technology, Amazon as well.

Amazon's system isn't the only emerging cashierless tech; it is part of the surge of investment in retail technologies recently. Investment into in-store retail tech startups jumped by $1.4B from 2018 to 2019, according to a study by market intelligence platform CB Insights.