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Amazon Targets Airports For Checkout-Free Store Expansion (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon is looking at bringing its futuristic checkout-free store format to airports in an effort to win business from hungry, time-pressed travelers, according to public records and a person familiar with the strategy. For months, the world's largest online retailer has been expanding Amazon Go, where customers scan their smartphones at a turnstile to enter, and then cameras identify what they take from the shelves. When shoppers are finished, they simply leave the store and Amazon bills their credit cards on file. Amazon is evaluating top U.S. airports for new locations, according to public records requests to several airport operators.
Scan your Amazon code, get in, grab water bottle and snack and you are out.
Though mostly I refill water bottles these days at airports with filling stations, sometimes I forget a bottle or the water at the airport it a bit too odd, then it usually takes a while for everyone in line to get through so I can just buy something simple.
Or just to get a yogurt or banana with no delay would be fantastic.
Amazon may be a giant soul-crushing monolith, but by gum are they becoming an indispensable soul-crushing monolith!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seems like this is a great business decision. If you can get your app on international phones, that is a huge market. This seems like a smart way to penetrate the Alibaba market.
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Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct. -- Thomas Carlyle
will they have free wifi or now prime will pay roaming fees?
Most airports now have free WiFi now and I've not paid data roaming fees in like a decade? Probably only five years, but you know internet time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
they extremely high markup means if somebody walks off with merchandise it doesn't really matter.
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Sometimes I need good food badly enough that a $5 yogurt that would be $1 elsewhere starts to look acceptable.
Not like it's going to be cheaper anywhere else in the airport.
And if you don't have a water bottle? Any amount is fine thanks because you really don't want to roll the dice getting on a plane these days without your own personal supply of water in case you are stuck on the tarmac for several hours.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
when it takes three times longer than usual to get ass-raped by tsa WTF is a "tsa" and why are you ass-raped by it at the airport?
Right, I must be fat because I want yogurt instead of chips or some greasy fast food?????? Ahh, AC's of Slashdot - never change.
P.S. The fact you are "hearing" my posts suggest you should seek medical attention. Those voices ain't mine buddy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If anyone else targets an airport it is an act of terrorism, but with Amazon it is a strategic business decision. It is probably a good thing the Amazon rep. and the $10K/hour consultant they hired to come up with this idea were not discussing it at the actual airport. The TSA would have declared it an emergency situation, locked down the airport, every school in a 30 mile radius, and cancelled every flight in the continental US.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
People can do that with vending machines and gas cards. This type of theft is definitely factored into the price of stuff.
Why in the world would one need a checkout-free store at an airport?
Either you prepare accordingly and arrive at the airport with all stuff you need and you just shop to pass some time until your flight is due.
Or you simply run out to the airport and shop for whatever you forgot?
Which approach would be cheaper?
Or how do USSAsians fly?
I work at a successful local retailer. I don't shop at Amazon. I don't even have an ID, as shocking as that may be to some people. I fly twice roundtrip every month. They won't get my business. I pay for things with cash.
I don't respond to AC's.
My overal experience of airports is waiting, waiting, waiting. Are there really people with such great timing skills that they manage to show up at the gate exactly at the moment when boarding starts?
At my local airport (Amsterdam, the 11th largest in the world), on a quiet day it takes half an hour from the station to the gate. And on a busy day you'd better have the full three hours, or you might not make your flight...
Thieves would much rather interact with humans than with a gazillion security cameras following every move and phone tracking. Humans are easy to trick and have bad memories.
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