Amazon throws in the towel
Epic fail https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-pulls-plug-cashierless-system-154640497.html
Why did it fail? Sounded cool
Equity
I tried this once, but I've never actually seen anyone else at whole foods use this (East coast). So definitely not surprised this didn't pan out.
Looks like theyre just pulling it from regular grocery stores while their Amazon Go store will remain open
There's only a handful of Go stores still open
did they close any Go stores?
People are shoplifting store that have cashiers and security, what’s to stop them from shoplifting or looting these?
Wait till they roll out the armed security drones
They do. I saw a homeless dude waved his foot on the sensor and it let him through the gate. He took a bunch of stuff and there were no employees stopping him.
Probably just too expensive with the setup, cameras and sensors everywhere. Just smart carts does seem cheaper
This is the answer
A solution looking for a problem..
I live in Seattle in walking distance from a few Amazon Go's and two Amazon Freshes. Nobody I know in the neighborhood shops there after one or two times just to check it out. They're always empty (except for a few people who I assume are usually Amazon employees). Their problems are- 1) The stores are just very bad as grocery stores - they have crappy selection at inflated prices. It's like single dudes who never buy groceries and just order takeout every day decided what to stock (which is probably what happened). 2) Amazon has a huge brand problem and nobody except Amazon employees want even more Amazon in their life when they have good alternatives. People shop online with Amazon because nobody does what they do nearly as well -- not the case at all with groceries.
That’s actually a nice take
What was the cause?
I've heard that they've spent $300 million on the concept and got back $50 million. ROI was obviously poor (to say the least). And to Microsoft's point there's a lot of people that do not trust Amazon.