Competing with Amazon Go

Pointing to other efforts under way, such as Project Kepler.  The tech is there, will it be effectively applied to customers that will use it?

Will other Grocers Beat Amazon Go to the Punch? 

By Matthew Stern in Retailwire  with Expert discussion.

While the U.S. continues to wait for the arrival of Amazon Go, other retailers are entering the cashier-less store space — including Amazon’s biggest emerging e-commerce rival.

Walmart recently began discussing Project Kepler, an initiative headed by the co-founder of Jet.com which, according to Recode, aims to create technology that, like Amazon Go, will eliminate the need for cashiers in-store.

In China, online retailer JD is launching hundreds of cashier-free store locations using technology that appears similar to Amazon Go. A combination of cameras and RFID tracks movement and item selections throughout the store. Facial recognition, also expected to be employed by Amazon Go, identifies customers.

According to the Telegraph, “JD explained that cameras on the ceilings of the stores can recognize customers’ movement and generate heat maps of their activity to monitor customer traffic flow, product selection and customer preferences, which helps store owners to stock efficiently.” .... "