Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
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Title: Amazon says a whopping 140 third-party stores in four countries use
its Just Walk Out tech

Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2024 19:16:50 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-a-whoppi...

Amazon published a blog post on Wednesday providing an update about its Just
Walk Out technology, which it reportedly pulled from its Fresh grocery stores
earlier this month. While extolling Just Walk OutΓÇÖs virtues as a sales
pitch to potential retail partners, the article lists a startlingly minuscule
number of (non-Amazon) stores using the tech. There are now ΓÇ£more than 140
third-party locations with Just Walk Out technology in the U.S., UK,
Australia, and Canada.ΓÇ¥

Mind you, that isnΓÇÖt the number of companies or retail chains licensing the
tech; thatΓÇÖs the total number of locations. Nor is that the tally in one
state or even one country. In four countries combined ΓÇö with a total
population of about 465 million ΓÇö Just Walk Out is being used in ΓÇ£more
than 140 third-party locations.ΓÇ¥

On average, that means thereΓÇÖs one third-party Just Walk Out store for
every 3.3 million people in those four countries. (They must be busy!) By
contrast, there are over one million retail locations in the US, and, as of
2019, Starbucks had 241 locations in New York City alone, and there are over
one million

Amazon had reportedly already planned to remove Just Walk Out tech from its
Fresh grocery stores for roughly a year because it was too expensive and
complicated for larger retail spaces to run and maintain. The company now
pitches its tech as ideal for smaller convenience stores with fewer customers
and products ΓÇö like its own Amazon Go stores, which it has been busy
shutting down over the last couple of years.

Amazon

The company reportedly gutted the team of developers working on Just Walk Out
tech earlier this month. (You get one guess as to how the laid-off workers
were instructed to leave the office.) As part of recent layoffs from
AmazonΓÇÖs AWS unit and Physical Stores Team, the company allegedly left only
ΓÇ£a skeleton crewΓÇ¥ to work on the tech moving forward. A skeleton crew to
maintain a skeleton sounds about right.

In fairness, some of those locations are at high-traffic venues. That
includes nine merch stores at SeattleΓÇÖs Lumen Field (home to the Seahawks
and Sounders), near AmazonΓÇÖs headquarters. Delaware North, a large
hospitality and entertainment company, has opened ΓÇ£more than a dozenΓÇ¥
stores using the tech. Amazon says stores adopting Just Walk Out have
reported increased transactions, sales and customer satisfaction.

Despite the reported gutting of Just Walk OutΓÇÖs development team, Amazon
says it ΓÇ£continues to invent the next generation of this technology to
improve the checkout experience for large-format stores.ΓÇ¥ Its next steps
include improving latency for ΓÇ£faster and more reliable receipts,ΓÇ¥ new
algorithms to recognize customer actions and new sensors better.

If the reports about layoffs are accurate, the handful of remaining Just Walk
Out developers will have their work cut out for them.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-a-whoppi...
four-countries-use-its-just-walk-out-tech-191649492.html?src=rss

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