I felt like a shoplifter inside Amazon Go
Jan 24, 2018, 6:51 AM | Updated: 8:14 am
A customer looks overhead in an Amazon Go store, where sensors and cameras are part of a system used to tell what people have purchased and charge their Amazon account. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
I went shopping at that new Amazon Go convenience store in Seattle. The store which, as you may have heard, has no cashiers.
Drop-down menus are for fonts, not public alerts
You put stuff in a bag, “and just leave.”
You do have to download an app on your phone that displays a QR code to open the turnstile at the entrance, but then you just take stuff! I took the banana chips, a can of roasted almonds, gingerberry Kombucha, a breakfast sandwich, and blueberry low-fat yogurt and put them in a paper bag without scanning or paying for anything.
As I walked toward the exit, it felt like shoplifting. I was prepared to take off running.
But no one chased me. The highway signs didn’t display a “Missing Kombucha Alert” with my license number. Instead, I received a message on my phone listing the five items that were in my bag, with the total — $15.93 — and the amount of time I spent shopping — 4 minutes 47 seconds. Yet I had scanned nothing. In fact, I’m pretty sure I covered up the barcodes as I put stuff in the bag! It was like getting a bill from God.
Plenty of ‘privacy implications’ when you enter Amazon Go store
Apparently, the only way to actually shoplift would be to reach into someone else’s bag before you leave. Although I have a feeling that even if you managed to pull that off Amazon would know, and send the arrest warrant to your phone.
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