Amazon to Open its Biggest Cashierless “Just Walk Out” Supermarket to Date

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Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) shocked the retail world last year with its first-in-history cashierless store, Amazon Go, its then-biggest where customers could directly grab the products and leave without worrying about going to the checkout.

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Amazon Scaling Its "Just Walk Out" Technology

This time, on June 17th in Washington, the e-commerce giant will open its first full-size store featuring the “Just Walk Out” tech, allowing customers to make their purchase inside, walk out and pay later. It is the fourteenth facility featuring this technology, and with its 25.000 square feet it is double the area of ​​its largest so far –Amazon Go is 10,400 square feet.

“Bringing ‘Just Walk Out’ technology to a full-size grocery space with the Amazon Fresh store in Bellevue showcases the technology’s continued ability to scale and adapt to new environments and selection,” Amazon’s vice president of Physical Retail and Technology, Dilip Kumar, told The Verge.

“The feedback has been fantastic, with customers noting that skipping the checkout allows them to save time and reduce contact in stores,” he added.

Amazon’s biggest store is located in LA, and it measures 35,000 feet. However, it does not sport the “Just Walk Out” technology, with which users simply access their Amazon account when entering the store, so that it can be associated with the purchase they make once inside. The purchase value is then charged to the payment method selected in their Amazon account, while also allowing customers to use traditional payment methods.

Amazon is part of the Entrepreneur Index, which tracks 60 of the largest publicly traded companies managed by their founders or their founders' families.

Competition Heating Up

The announcement came just hours before Trigo, a computer-vision-based grocery checkout technology start-up from Israel had revealed a $10 million funding by Germany-based REWE Group, to bring their “grab and go” technology to bigger stores, with which they plan to rival Amazon’s “Just Walk Out”.

As informed by TechCrunch, Trigo has received $104 million in total since a Series A round in 2019, and today announced its partnership with the German company.

“Trigo is immensely proud and honored to be deepening its strategic partnership with REWE Group, one of Europe’s biggest and most innovative grocery retailers,” said Michael Gabay, Trigo co-founder and CEO, in a statement.

REWE owns 3,700 stores across Germany, so opportunities for Trigo expansion are rife. According to a press release, it is the second major European grocer to both open frictionless stores with Trigo and invest in the startup, following Tesco PLC’s similar moves in 2020.