Amazon’s attempts at creating a cashier-less convenient store that people actually want to go to are expanding to more cities.
The e-commerce giant will open up to six more Amazon Go cashier-free stores this year, Recode is reporting, citing people who claim to have knowledge of its plans. A few of those locations will be opened in Seattle, home to Amazon’s headquarters and the first Amazon Go stores. The company could also open in Los Angeles, among other cities.
The first Amazon Go store opened last month in Seattle. Unlike a traditional convenience store, there are no humans there to check you out when you buy products. Instead, customers simply walk into the store, pick up what they want, and they’re automatically charged for their purchases on their accounts. The stores use a variety of scanning technologies and algorithms to monitor patrons and verify purchases.
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For now, Amazon Go stores are tests to see if a cashier-less experience is feasible. The company’s decision to expand to more locations across Seattle and Los Angeles suggest that the early experiments are going well. But a true test centers on Amazon testing its Go locations in multiple places where customer behavior could be different. The effort to expand in six more locations this year appears to be a step in that direction.
The report didn’t specify as to when Amazon might open these Go stores and at least so far, the company hasn’t confirmed the news. An Amazon spokesperson told Coins2Day in an e-mailed statement that the company doesn’t “comment on rumors or speculation.”