Amazon starts selling smart grocery carts to other retailers

Amazon
will
begin
selling
its
smart
grocery
carts
to
other
retailers,
the
company
said
Wednesday,
marking
its
latest
bid
to
turn
its
Dash
Cart
technology
into
a
service.

A
handful
of
Price
Chopper
and
McKeever’s
Market
stores
located
in
Kansas
and
Missouri
are
testing
the
smart
grocery
carts,
which
track
and
tally
up
items
while
customers
shop,
Amazon
said.

Amazon
launched
the
Dash
Cart

in
2020
at
its
Fresh
supermarket
chain
before
adding
it
to
select
Whole
Foods
stores.
They
use
a
combination
of
computer
vision
and
sensors
to
identify
items
as
they’re
placed
in
bags
inside
the
cart.
As
shoppers
add
and
remove
items,
a
display
on
the
cart
adjusts
the
total
price
in
real
time.

Amazon
is
following
a
similar
playbook
previously
deployed
for
its “Just
Walk
Out”
cashier-less
technology.
Just
Walk
Out
was
first
conceived
for
use
in
Amazon’s
Go
convenience
stores,
until
Amazon

began
selling
the
system
to
third-party
retailers
in
airports,
stadiums,
hospitals
and
other
venues.

While
it’s
signed
up
more
third-party
Just
Walk
Out
users,
Amazon
has
pulled
the
technology
from
many
of
its
own
grocery
stores.
Earlier
this
month,
Amazon

said
it
would
scrap
Just
Walk
Out
at
some
Fresh
stores,
and
the
two
Whole
Foods
locations
where
it
was
installed.
The
company’s
Go
convenience
stores
and
smaller
Fresh
stores
in
the
U.K.
will
continue
to
use
the
technology,
while
it
will
expand
Dash
Carts
in
its
U.S.
Fresh
stores.

Amazon
teams
working
on
Just
Walk
Out,
Dash
Carts
and
other
physical
store
technologies

were
among
those
hit
by
layoffs
earlier
this
month.

On
Wednesday,
Amazon
said
it
has “strong
conviction
that
Just
Walk
Out
technology
will
be
the
future
in
stores
that
have
a
curated
selection
where
customers
can
pop
in,
grab
the
small
number
of
items
they
need,
and
simply
walk
out.”

Just
Walk
Out
relies
on
an
array
of
cameras
and
sensors
throughout
the
store
that
monitor
which
items
shoppers
pick
up
and
charge
them
automatically
when
they
leave.
Amazon
and
other
start-ups
that
have
developed
similar
cashier-less
checkout
systems
were
slow
to
launch
them
in
larger
format
stores,
originally
introducing
the
systems
in
convenience
marts,
due
to
the
complex
and
expensive
technology
involved.

Those
systems
came
under
scrutiny
earlier
this
month
after
reports
from

Gizmodo
and
others
claimed
Amazon’s
Just
Walk
Out
technology
relied
on
human
moderators
who “watched
you
as
you
shopped.”
Many
of
the
reports
cited
a
May
2023
story
from

The
Information
which
said
Amazon
uses
roughly
1,000
employees
in
India
to
review
JWO
transactions
and
label
footage
to
help
train
the
AI
models
that
make
it
work.

Amazon
said
reports
that
workers
watched
customers
from
afar
are “untrue,”
though
it
conceded
that
human
staffers
are
responsible
for
labeling
and
annotating
shopping
data.

“Associates
don’t
watch
live
video
of
shoppers
to
generate
receipts
—
that’s
taken
care
of
automatically
by
the
computer
vision
algorithms,”
the
company
said. “This
is
no
different
than
any
other
AI
system
that
places
a
high
value
on
accuracy,
where
human
reviewers
are
common.”