Amazon Fresh, the till-free grocery shop that uses “just walk out” technology, is closing all 19 of its stores in London, just under five years after opening its first outlet. If you’re unfamiliar, the premise of the store is that shoppers identify themselves at the entrance, walk in, select the items that they want, and then a combination of AI, sensors and computer vision determine the items in their basket and process an automatic payment via a customer’s Amazon account when they walk out.
If that sounds weird and disorienting then I can assure you – having visited an outlet out of pure curiosity and having left distressed – it is. Among the reasons given for the venture’s failure, from location choices to struggling to differentiate itself in the market, one financial analyst has suggested that till-less technology “always felt a little awkward”. When I visited I wasn’t totally clear on how to get in or, frankly, how to get out. A sense of panic overwhelmed me as I wondered if the sensors would process me changing my mind about an item and putting it back on the shelf, or charge me for it. Would I be prosecuted if, say, a large box of cereal blocked the sight of a tin of sardines and thus escaped the sensors?
Of course every store has CCTV equipment, but the idea that sensors and cameras could be connected to my phone and track every item I touched felt like big tech overreach, surveillance on steroids. That you could just walk out of a shop without pressing pay seemed strangely incongruous with the direction of other grocery stores. Around two years ago the big Sainsbury’s down the road installed scan-receipt-to-exit barriers, a technology I had first seen in Paris, and which has been rolled out to many other big supermarkets. It is truly a nightmare. Not only does it feel like you’re going through an airport when you’re just picking up a meal deal, but the scanner is repeatedly faulty, often resulting in a pile-up of people trying to exit.
Then there is the failure of self-scan checkouts. These tills were meant to save time, but that possibility immediately collapses once there’s an “unidentified item in the bagging area” or the overwhelmed shop assistant has to approve someone’s age.
You might then think the idea of a till-free checkout would be a relief. But if anything, when you’re made to feel so distrusted and burdened by inconvenience it feels far more like a setup. No till? Surely someone is waiting on the other side ready to bundle me into a police van over an unscanned pot of pesto pasta.
Mostly though, the failure of Amazon Fresh reveals that we are simply not ready for technology like this. It is the kind of futuristic development that you might have imagined would totally change the face of high street shopping, but shoppers have roundly rejected it. Like our reluctance to take up self-driving cars, it’s about a lack of trust in being totally at the whim of technology. Some stores have been able to win over the public – the Japanese casual wear brand Uniqlo’s self-checkout technology is pretty frictionless and genuinely loved. But even then, as a frequent Uniqlo shopper, while the convenience is nice it makes me feel strangely isolated.
We need, and maybe even like, other people. Whether it’s grocery or clothes shopping, having a little chat or a flirt with a store assistant makes the experience. Recently, after a frustrating and failed attempt to find a suit for a wedding, I soothed myself by spending far too much money on a lovely knitted jumper at Drake’s on Savile Row. The shop assistant told me I looked good in it and, seeing how flustered I was, offered me an espresso. For that alone I’ll be back to blow more of my money.
Of course I don’t expect that treatment on the high street or in a grocery store, but I do find myself missing the small comments of “I love these crisps, my favourite” at a supermarket till. And queueing, though I’ll rue saying this during the post-work rush, is not all bad. One of my favourite things to do in a supermarket queue is peer into other shoppers’ baskets to make a guess about what kind of evening they’re having or what kind of life they live. If you can simply walk out you might save some time, but you’ll learn less about the people around you, while a computer gets to know it all.
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