Amazon's 'Just Walk Out' Tech for Retailers

Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology is interesting - but is Amazon the company the retail industry wants to see implementing this?

Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology is interesting - but is Amazon the company the retail industry wants to see implementing this? Where are the alternatives that allow retailers to keep their data on their own servers?

The well known chain of airport stores, Hudson (opens in new tab), has deployed Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ technology.

It requires shoppers to sign up for Amazon One - which means holding your palm over a scanner and to provide the credit card you’d like to link to your purchases the first time you scan in. Then, as shoppers move around the store, cameras track their movements and sensors on the shelf correlate which person has picked up which items. That way, when you’re done shopping you can just walk out.

There’s privacy concerns for consumers, but it’s also surprising that a retailer would agree to deploy this service - and looking at their marketing, Amazon is pushing other retailers to roll Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. Not only does this mean adding prominent Amazon signage to your customer experience in your stores, it means that Amazon will have some level of access to data about traffic levels and traffic patterns in your stores, consumer interaction with products on the shelves and purchase data.

The technology is interesting - this approach may eventually replace cashiers and even self check technology in the coming years. But is Amazon the company the retail industry wants to see implementing this? Competitors like Grabango offered cashierless checkout technology that let retailers keep their data on their own infrastructure rather than handing it to a marketplace competitor. It will be interesting to see what retailers sign up for this next.

Explore more in our Omnichannel Commerce Hub — resources for in-store technology, unified commerce, and omnichannel retail strategies.

If you’d like to see this in person outside of an Amazon owned store, Hudson has deployed this technology at their stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Dallas Love Field and Nashville with an announcement that it is coming soon to their location at Chicago Midway.