Amazon says a whopping 140 third-party stores in four countries use its Just Walk Out tech

Amazon published a blog post on Wednesday providing an update about its Just Walk Out technology, which it reportedly pulled from its Fresh grocery stores earlier this month. While extolling Just Walk Out’s virtues as a sales pitch to potential retail partners, the article lists a startlingly minuscule number of (non-Amazon) stores using the tech. There are now “more than 140 third-party locations with Just Walk Out technology in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Canada.”

Mind you, that isn’t the number of companies or retail chains licensing the tech; that’s the total number of locations. Nor is that the tally in one state or even one country. In four countries combined — with a total population of about 465 million — Just Walk Out is being used in “more than 140 third-party locations.”

On average, that means there’s one third-party Just Walk Out store for every 3.3 million people in those four countries. (They must be busy!) By contrast, there are over one million retail locations in the US, and, as of 2019, Starbucks had 241 locations in New York City alone, and there are over one million

Amazon had reportedly already planned to remove Just Walk Out tech from its Fresh grocery stores for roughly a year because it was too expensive and complicated for larger retail spaces to run and maintain. The company now pitches its tech as ideal for smaller convenience stores with fewer customers and products — like its own Amazon Go stores, which it has been busy shutting down over the last couple of years.

A medical workers scans a badge at an Amazon-powered Just Walk Out kiosk in a hospital.
Amazon

The company reportedly gutted the team of developers working on Just Walk Out tech earlier this month. (You get one guess as to how the laid-off workers were instructed to leave the office.) As part of recent layoffs from Amazon’s AWS unit and Physical Stores Team, the company allegedly left only “a skeleton crew” to work on the tech moving forward. A skeleton crew to maintain a skeleton sounds about right.

In fairness, some of those locations are at high-traffic venues. That includes nine merch stores at Seattle’s Lumen Field (home to the Seahawks and Sounders), near Amazon’s headquarters. Delaware North, a large hospitality and entertainment company, has opened “more than a dozen” stores using the tech. Amazon says stores adopting Just Walk Out have reported increased transactions, sales and customer satisfaction.

Despite the reported gutting of Just Walk Out’s development team, Amazon says it “continues to invent the next generation of this technology to improve the checkout experience for large-format stores.” Its next steps include improving latency for “faster and more reliable receipts,” new algorithms to recognize customer actions and new sensors better.

If the reports about layoffs are accurate, the handful of remaining Just Walk Out developers will have their work cut out for them.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-a-whopping-140-third-party-stores-in-four-countries-use-its-just-walk-out-tech-191649492.html?src=rss https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-a-whopping-140-third-party-stores-in-four-countries-use-its-just-walk-out-tech-191649492.html?src=rss
Utworzony 1y | 17 kwi 2024, 19:20:19


Zaloguj się, aby dodać komentarz

Inne posty w tej grupie

The Amazon Echo Spot has been discounted to $45 for Prime Day

Prime Day 2025 is basically here, and the sales are abundant. There's deals on some of our favorite products, like

9 lip 2025, 07:50:16 | Engadget
Two months of Paramount+ is down to only $2 right now

Another hot streaming deal has arrived to match the summer heat. This time is comes

9 lip 2025, 07:50:15 | Engadget
Prime Day deals on vacuums include the Dyson V15 Detect Plus for $180 off

Amazon Prime Day has returned for the summer, making it a good time to check to see if any big-ticket gadgets on yo

9 lip 2025, 07:50:13 | Engadget
Waymo is adding teen accounts for autonomous vehicle rides without parents

Waymo has introduced an option for teen accounts, allowing young passengers to take rides in its driverless robotaxis with

9 lip 2025, 00:50:13 | Engadget
Video Games Weekly: Every time this industry grows, it shrinks

Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and rel

9 lip 2025, 00:50:11 | Engadget
Grok sure seems antisemitic after its recent update

Last Friday, Elon Musk said that X's built-in chatbot had been "significantly" improved. "You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," Musk said

9 lip 2025, 00:50:10 | Engadget
Amazon Prime Day deals include $50 off one of our favorite Ninja air fryers

For many, summer means it's time to grill outdoors. But cooking inside does at least mean you’re likely to deal with fewer bugs. It also makes it easier to try out new kitchen equipment, such as a

8 lip 2025, 22:40:13 | Engadget