Amazon.com Inc.’s “Just Walk Out” technology for retail shopping is true to its name. No questions asked. Just leave.
The company’s technology debuted in Greater Washington with the opening of its newest Amazon Fresh grocery store in Logan Circle on July 22. The technology allows customers to skip the checkout line entirely through QR code and overhead camera technology.
When I first walked into the store at 1733 14th St. NW, an Amazon Fresh employee stationed in front of lockers designed for Amazon packages asked me if it was my first time at the store before explaining to me the process.
First, you open the Amazon Shopping app on your phone and select “in-store code” at the top of the screen, which will display a QR code. You then enter the store, where there are two gates that will open once you hold your phone up to the scanner and it registers your QR code, which is linked to your Amazon account and subsequent payment.
And then you’re in. There are stations with signs encouraging customers to bag as they shop, with $0.05 brown paper bags or $0.99 reusable totes, or you can use your own bag, plus shopping carts and plastic baskets to hold your items.
The 7,302-square-foot store, which is open between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily, features the produce section immediately when you walk in. To the front left is a customer service station, operated by just one employee on Wednesday afternoon, as well as the bakery and deli sections. The rest of the store is sorted around two aisles, and the alcohol section — which has an employee stationed there to verify your ID — is at the very back right of the space.
I picked up two items on the end of the store’s middle aisle — chef sampler sushi and guava kombucha — and there was no external indication that I had placed them in my virtual shopping cart or physical shopping basket. But the technology would sense if I had changed my mind about what I wanted, and placing an item back on the shelf would automatically remove it from my order.
“You can literally just walk out,” the employee told me, explaining that cameras and sensors would capture my purchases and I should receive my receipt within 30 minutes. So I took my sushi and kombucha and did just that.
There was no ding or other notification that registered me leaving — I just walked through a separate set of motion-sensor gates and out the same front doors. Shortly after, the order summary appeared on my Amazon app, which indicated the store location and when I made my purchase, how long I shopped in the store, and what I was charged for my two items.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) offers its Just Walk Out technology, which originally started in its Amazon Go stores, to other U.S. and international retailers, too. Currently, four companies are using the technology for their retail stores in Dallas, Chicago, Newark, Boston and Las Vegas. But no Greater Washington retailers have opted in yet.
The company says on its website that installing the technology can take a few weeks, once it has access to the third-party store — or the company can work alongside architects for new buildings or redevelopments. And customers can just use their credit card, rather than the Amazon app.
As for privacy concerns, Amazon says it only collects data needed to give customers an accurate receipt — similar to security camera footage.
The Logan Circle store, part of the Liz mixed-use project, opened roughly two months after Greater Washington’s first Fresh store opened in Franconia, where customers can scan and pay for their items through Dash Carts or just pay traditionally.
At least six more stores are slated to open in the region: in the city of Fairfax, Potomac Yard, Lorton and Baileys Crossroads in Northern Virginia and Chevy Chase and Gaithersburg in suburban Maryland.
Two other locations are set to get an Amazon store of some kind — either an Amazon Fresh or Go Grocery is coming to H Street NE, and an Amazon 4-Star or an Amazon Books is on its way to Germantown, per Washington Business Journal reporting.
