Amazon to offer other retailers Dash Cart, reaffirms 'Just Walk Out'
Amazon has provided new insights into its plans for its smart shopping cart ("Smart Cart") and "Just Walk Out" checkout-free technologies.
The omnichannel giant, which recently said it will remove its "Just Walk Out" technology from its high-tech Amazon Fresh grocery stores and instead deploy its Dash Cart solution, is clarifying its strategy for both solutions.
In a corporate blog post, Dilip Kumar, VP, AWS applications, Amazon, said that the company is going to offer third-party retailers the opportunity to use Dash Cart. He also said the Just Walk Out remains a vital checkout technology for both Amazon and third-party retailers, especially in small-format stores.
Dash Cart
Dash Cart smart shopping carts use a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion to identify items customers put in the cart and allow them to shop, pay for their items and leave without having to wait in a checkout line.
According to Kumar, In larger grocery stores, where customers are making a big weekly trip and buy a greater number of items, customers prefer Dash Cart, which uses the same advanced, computer vision technology as Just Walk Out. Along with letting shoppers skip the line at checkout, Dash Cart serves as a "shopping companion" that travels through the store with a customer, helping them locate items with an on-cart screen featuring maps and navigation. It also provides a personalized shopping experiences and tracks customer savings and spending in real time.
In response, Amazon has already begun expanding Dash Cart to all Amazon Fresh stores and select Whole Foods Market stores, as well as select third-party grocery stores. The retailer is also developing future iterations of Dash Cart.
Amazon data indicates Dash Cart shoppers spend 10% more than non-Dash Cart shoppers at Amazon Fresh stores, and more than 80% of daily Dash Cart transactions are from repeat users. The technology has a 98% customer satisfaction rating, and Amazon research shows that people will drive farther to a store if it offers Dash Cart.
Just Walk Out
Amazon is still bullish on Just Walk Out despite the decision to phase it out at Amazon Fresh. Kumar said that the response from shoppers to Just Walk Out in small-format stores has been so strong that the retailer will launch more small-format third-party Just Walk Out stores in 2024 than any year prior, more than doubling the number of third-party stores with the technology during the year.
According to Kumar, Amazon has already sold over 18 million items in Just Walk Out stores, and there are now more than 140 third-party locations with Just Walk Out technology in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada.
These include travel retailers, sports stadiums, entertainment venues, conference centers, theme parks, convenience stores, hospitals, and college campuses. Kumar said that Lumen Field in Seattle (home stadium of the Seattle Seahawks pro football team), reported an 85% increase in transactions and a 112% increase in sales, per game at concessions stores equipped with Just Walk Out.
Lumen Field now has the most Just Walk Out locations of any venue in the world, with nine stores serving a base of more than 68,000 customers who attend games and events there.
Kumar also disputed previous media reports indicating that human workers based in India manually watch live video of at least some Just Walk Out transactions to generate receipts, saying computer vision algorithms automatically perform this task.
[Read more: How Amazon and Target are shaking up frictionless checkout]
"We are excited about the future of AI-powered, identity and checkout solutions like Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Dash Cart, and Amazon One (palm recognition technology)," said Kumar in the blog post. "The future of retail will be transformed by AI, and we are just getting started.”