Amazon opens Seattle grocery store, expanding grab-and-go cashless shopping | Progresiv
Amazon's radical new approach to buying foods and speeding up the checkout process goes the next mile Tuesday, with a full-size grocery store in Seattle. 
The Amazon Go Grocery opens with more than four times the space of the original, 7-Eleven-style, on-the-go type stores first opened in 2018. The e-tailer, which also owns Whole Foods, launched the Go stores as a way for local workers to get in and out, with a just basics menu that bypassed essentials like fruit and frozen foods.
"We believe 'Just walk out' technology," makes shopping a better experience, says Cameron Janes, vice president of Amazon's physical stores division.
With Amazon Go Grocery, the company has reimagined the concept as a store offering pretty much everything you'd see at a local market with local fish and meats, wines and beers, fresh doughnuts and cookies and other staples.
The difference: a way smaller footprint, with 10,000 square feet in Seattle, compared to an average of 50,000 square feet for a local Kroger, says Britain Ladd, a supply-side consultant and former Amazon executive.
To shop at the Go stores, you download the Amazon Go app and use it to enter the store by scanning the barcode in a kiosk. Once inside, every item you pick up and bag is monitored by the overhead cameras, which note if you return it to the shelf. When done, you walk out of the store and receive an email receipt of your purchase.
The big idea: speed up the process, and don't make people wait behind long checkout lines, says Janes.
Originally, customers who wanted to pay with cash instead of a credit or debit couldn't, but Amazon has revised that policy. Several cities have since passed laws demanding that stores accept cash for payment. (eu.usatoday.com)
