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Amazon May Open Up To Six More Automated Stores This Year (engadget.com)
Amazon may have opened its automated convenience store a year late, but it looks like it's been a pretty big success. From a report: Recode learned that the company plans on opening six more of its Amazon Go stores in 2018. It's not clear where these stores will be located, though Recode reports that more locations are likely in Seattle, and Amazon is in talks with the developer of The Grove in Los Angeles. Amazon Go is billed as the convenience store of the future. There are no checkout lines; you can simply walk in, grab what you want, and leave. You scan in with a smartphone app, and then an AI tracks what you take from the shelves and automatically charges you for them.
Wow, AI tracks what you take and automatically charges you? The advances in AI are incredible! Hopefully it records the purchase in a blockchain ledger too. That would be TOO COOL.
Traditional retail stores of all types have a certain percentage of merchandise that gets shoplifted, they all just factor that into expected profit and loss.
But in this kind of store, it's literally impossible to shoplift because there are so many cameras monitoring product - the loss from AI not realizing you had picked up something is probably substantially smaller than shoplifting.
All you need to do is make sure people really scan in before they enter... was not sure how that aspect worked.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's not clear where these stores will be located
Hint: You wont find them in Inglewood. These stores will show up some place with a lot of upper middle class white people who dont mind paying more to avoid the usual drolls of a convenience store. homeless beggars arent slumped against the side of the building, and there isnt a stench of fetid trash from the parking lot.
convenience store of the future
Ive been to a go store. theres about a 30-40% markup from what you might find at a CVS or 7 eleven. they dont take cash , they dont sell fresh fruit, and everything is armoured in plastic wrap and polystyrene to ensure it gets a good barcode or nfc sensor. Its the future, if the future came with a "no poor people" label. Security stands at the ready by the door and many items are out of stock.
Go is a branded lifestyle experience, not a convenience store.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Didn't this store just open a few weeks ago? Check back in a year before calling it a "big success". While it may turn out to be one, right now it's just a curiosity.
#DeleteChrome
Look up articles on the store. The AI already handles ALL of those cases except for price confusion.
You can verify the prices of all items as you pick them up, or put them back if you think it's wrong. I think they price items individually, not on the shelves below, so I can't see where you could get very confused...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
True. It is impossible to shoplift when cameras are present.
It is when every item is in clear view of multiple cameras. The system knows you went by an area and that items are no longer there. It doesn't matter if it saw you take it specifically.
Your semi-humorous sarcastic comment is usually accurate because traditional cameras (A) do not fully cover a store, and (B) are not fully monitored as to actions seen. A camera may record theft but if no-one is watching the person gets away despite the camera. With the Amazon store, anything you pick up, by any means is charged to your account because Amazon also knows the identity of every single person in the store and can see all items clearly from multiple angles.
As I said, the only possible weakness is if you can get in without scanning in. But I'm pretty sure they control entry since that needs to work 100% to charge people correctly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
people who pee on the floor
If they have stockers would they not have janitors for inevitable breakage??? Gee, I wonder what ELSE they could clean???
people who open packages and use the product right there in the store
Go right ahead, as soon as you do you just bought it. Why is this any different a problem from today, except this system can actually recognize and charge these people on the spot????
kids grabbing things off the shelves
Wow it is like SO VERY HARD to tell if someone entered the store with someone they should all be charged to the same account. If they have nearly infallible identity tracking already for all people in store, why on earth would you even mention this as a problem when it knows who has entered the store together??????
Most of the "issues" you and others reference are in fact covered by this illuminating XKCD comic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not everyone is equally useful. In the past, those people would die. It is the natural order of things.
no, these people are sent into the fields to pull weeds and harvest vegetables
it's the psychopaths like you that we leave naked in the forest
You do realize that the cameras aren't recognizing "this guy is stealing", right?
How is it theft if that person is charged for any item they take from the store? You seem to not understand fundamental aspects of what Amazon is doing.
You literally cannot steal if you are always charged for items taken (or consumed to address another idiotic point).
It is just a system like CVS has had for years, but hooked to a smartphone app.
It is nothing like that whatsoever, in any aspect. Do you honestly not realize the difference? You don't seem to understand even the slightest but about how the Amazon system works. It knows when any item is removed. It knows who has the item. It knows who every single person in the store is and can charge them for anything, because every single person in the store had to basically log in to enter with an Amazon account, to which all items it knows you have are charged.
Since you seem so confused on this point, let me paint a picture. Someone enters the store, and craftily palms and item from the shelf. As soon as he moves away maybe ten or so cameras know the item is gone, know who it was next to the item. Even if none of the cameras saw his hand touch it the system knows that person has the item in question. When he leaves the store, item carefully longed down underwear, the system charges him whatever that item cost...
Just what aspect of this whole system did you not grasp?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Most people wouldn't consider not having to interact with a cashier as a positive.
First of all, Wow on that collection of negatives and positives.
Secondly, when you go to any store that features self-checkout is it usually busy or not?
"Most people would not", indeed. I guess you enjoy waiting in lines and inane conversation and implicit judgement of every item you buy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Finally, someone who has actually done some reading and understand how the stores work.
Now shoplifting alone isn't a very serious offence, but because of the authentication
Here's the thing; in this system there is no shoplifting. Because to the system, all intent of taking a product is gone - it has been reduced to the system itself realizing someone has taken a product and charging them.
There is no difference to the system between someone picking up an item with an intent to steal, or an intent the purchase. The system has to be able to detect a person has the item no matter how they took it to begin with, because even the most innocent person may simply pick up an item in a way difficult to detect. That's why someone repeatedly taking items without being charged would not be banned, the video would be studied instead to understand how they took the items without being properly charged for them, because it would be the fault of the system they were not charged.
In a normal store shoplifting is possible because someone unknown can enter a store and leave without paying. But in the Amazon store, the system knows every person in the store, is capable of charging any person in the store. So any failure to charge a customer for an item in an Amazon automated store is a system failure, not theft. The whole idea is you can pick up anything and simply leave with it, so it is not possible to steal as long as every customer has to log in when entering (bypassing that would be the only way true theft would be possible but even there it is a design flaw to allow entry without authentication and identification).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In and out before the automated system has a chance to contact the cops.
How did they enter the store again? You have to use the application and your Amazon login to enter the store. I hope the poor sap who let the mob in enjoyed everything they took being charged to his account. From Amazon's standpoint, a flash mob entering the store and not being charged is a system flaw, not shoplifting.
Ok, the mob could smash the window and go in that way. But at that point you are not "shoplifting" you are "looting".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
self checkout makes it hard to Prosecute shoplifting as someone can say did not scan right.
People will enter the stores WITHOUT cell phones, accounts, or other means of charging them or tracking their identity.
In the existing stores that would mean hopping a turnstile while also avoiding a guard monitoring the turnstiles. A lot more at stake than just entering the traditional store and leaving with an item in the coat.
People will remove items from the shelves in ways that CANNOT be tracked by the sensors.
How does that work exactly? How do you remove an item without being tracked when there are pressure sensors and ten cameras looking at each item continuously? As soon as an item is off the shelf the store knows. It also knows who you are from entry.
The problem with your assertion is that if the item can be removed without the sensors noticed, that also means non-shoplifters would not get charged in some cases if they picked up an item in the same way. Because the store exists, that means it can accurately charge people picking up items, which means you cannot shoplift.
people will smash windows and raid the whole fucking place because they can.
Which is not shoplifting and has other defenses possible. Go ahead and try and discover what they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
self checkout makes it hard to Prosecute shoplifting as someone can say did not scan right.
There is no scanning anything in the Amazon store, you scan YOURSELF to allow entry, that is it. You pick up what you want and leave the store, that is it.
So like I said shoplifting as we know it is not possible with this store because the point is that you are supposed to just pick up items and go. A failure to charge is on the system, not you. Even if you get out without paying for something that literally cannot be your fault, and is not stealing, much less shoplifting.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not paying $2 to Amazon for "raw water" no matter how much you make it look "tech".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If Amazon opens one of these stores up in an urban area, it will be hit on a regular basis.
If they choose to open it in a more questionable area populated by a bunch of Slashdot reading crime-minded scum, they could simply have greater control over access.
The existing store has turnstiles and staff monitoring entry to turn back people without accounts, but it's not hard to imagine something like a revolving door that will not move until you have logged in, with an armed guard on the other side as backup for someone trying to break (or hack) the door.
Preventing people from smashing store windows to get in is something people in a lot of bad areas have figured out already for quite some time. It's not like bars over windows are hard.
The fundamental idea is sound, guard access and allow only known customers to enter the store that can be automatically charged for whatever they take.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I hope you get some help.
Says the man whose first thought on thinking of an automated store is "what if I choose to pee on the floor".
I guess there's a pretty good reason you choose your handle to be DogDude.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except hiring guards instead of cashiers
I am pretty sure hiring one guard is a lot less expensive than three or four checkout personnel. There is a lot of per-person employment overhead in terns of paperwork and taxes.
defeats the entire purpose of having an unmanned store.
Incorrect, since the PRIMARY purpose is to make the store more convenient for the shopper, meaning more repeat business. It's not about eliminating people, the whole store concept is around how they can make shopping easier and better for people (and at the same time draw in more people to using Amazon in general).
And it won't prevent theft.
If the only people to enter the store are people who authenticate with an Amazon account, then theft will be dramatically reduced compared to the levels stores see today (which was my original point in my very first post on this subject).
Someone who is authenticated LITERALLY CANNOT STEAL. The only error that may occur is the system not properly charging someone, but over time they will figure out what leads to the system not charging as it should and correct them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't they have strain gauges on the shelves too?
How about people swapping for empty containers? (With dirt or water in it for weight.)
Excuse me, I can't reach that, could you pass it to me?
I'm honestly not sure who they are catering too or what the business case is.
#1 They still need staff to monitor the alcohol and make sure everyone is over 21
#2 They still need staff to stock shelves
#3 They still need staff to help you find whatever
#4 They still need staff to prevent you from walking in without identifying yourself (namely, the GO phone app)
#5 There is so much technology embedded in the ceiling that I have a hard time if will ever pay for itself
#6 Like all things from Amazon, everything is covered in this horrid packaging. I would rather buy my carrots or broccoli without it being wrapper in styrofoam.
NO THANK YOU.
*Holds fake box of Rice-O-Roni stuffed with dirt*
*Looks at real box of Rice-O-Roni on shelf, rubs chin, adds a half-handful of dirt to fake box*
*Three more cameras swivel my way*
*Quickly swaps real and fake boxes, nothing happens*
*Starts to walk slowly away, smile spreading across face*
*Ominous rumble from back of room, dust starts shaking from ceiling*
*Start running for exit as giant Echo Dot rolls from storage area, crushing shelves, employees and other customers as it accelerates towards me while Alexa screams something in Celtic*
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I heard that some Whole Foods stores have a bit of spare shelf space.