Channel: NeoScribe

Category: Science & Technology

Tags: amazonamazon go no linesamazon go survellienceamazon go strategyamazon go 3000 storesamazon goamazon go technologyamazon go expansionamazon go new storeamazon go data mining

Description: Hello, Welcome to NeoScribe. Another Black Friday is just around the corner, I plan to do what I do every year, and that is avoiding the chaos of Door Buster mad-dashes and Disneyworld-long lines of shoppers. But in the future, waiting in line to purchase items might be a thing of the past. That’s because Amazon is developing technology that will allow you to walk into a store, scan your smartphone on the turnstile, grab what you want and simply walk out. To do this, Amazon uses a state of the art surveillance system that uses computer vision and sensor fusion. And this involves a large array of cameras and sensors along with artificial intelligence to identify and track customers as they move throughout the store. AI systems analyze data from digital images along with weight sensors on store shelves. And as shoppers reach for items, the AI systems determine exactly what items they’re taking off and/or if they put the items back. All shoppers need is an Amazon account and the Amazon Go App and then whatever they walk out of the store with will simply be charged on their Amazon account and receipts are sent to the app. Amazon has been improving on the Surveillance System since December 2016, when they opened the first Amazon Go store in Seattle to Amazon Employees. It’s a small 167 square meter convenience store with limited groceries, ready-made meals, and liquor. Before becoming available to the public Amazon had an issue with the surveillance system’s ability to track crowds larger than 20 people along with other things like distinguishing people with similar appearances. But they eventually improved the system’s issues and the store became available to the public in January 2018. Since then, Amazon has opened two more stores in Seattle, two in Chicago and opened their newest store in San Francisco last month. And Amazons plans to expand rapidly, increasing the number of stores to 50 by 2020 and up to 3,000 stores across the country by 2021. This will be a massive investment of more than $3 Billion based on the cost of the original store at $1 million for the hardware alone, which is a lot of money for a convenience store. The convenience store industry has a terrible average profit margin of less than 2%. The average convenience store generates a gross revenue of $650,000, and from all of that money, they own only takes $66,000. But this expansion is less about breaking into the convenience store industry, and more about establishing the Go-Technology’s true end game, which is learning shopper’s behavior. You see, industry experts believe the true value of this surveillance system is that it will allow Amazon to collect and analyze vast amounts of data on shopper behavior. This would allow retail companies to fully optimize their operations, from how to lay out their stores, to develop strategies on how to catches shopper’s attention. In order to rapidly perfect this analytics platform, Amazon will have to collect more data and to do that, they need to open more Go Stores… you get the picture. Then once the platform is perfected, many believe Amazon will look to strike gold once again like they did with Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services is the company’s most profitable division that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms, such as database storage, content delivery, or other functionality. A seemingly countless number of major entities use Amazon Web Services including GE, NASA, and Sony. So, in a similar fashion, Amazon may someday launch a Retail Analytics Service to retailers across the world. And perhaps in the future, shopping on Black Friday will actually be an enjoyable thing to do to get in the holiday spirit. Until then, it’s a day of eating leftover stuffing and turkey and gravy, whoo! Can’t wait! Alright, that’s all I have for now. I hope you enjoyed your journey, if you did, please leave a like and subscribe. I am NeoScribe and I’ll see you on the next journey.