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AWS Just Walk Out Technology

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Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#11
post #4
post #2

SNL satire of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS9U3Gc832Y

This is the best example as to why DEI for companies matters. A room full of white & asian men would likely not pick up on this prior to the launch.

Obviously white and Asian men are capable of realizing that customers might feel like they are stealing items (or will be accused of stealing) in the Go store. It is ridiculous to think such an obvious concern would be invisible to people based on their race or gender.

It's also very strange to think that team members should be responsible for speaking for their race. Imagine if your team had a black engineer and your team expected him to explain to everyone "the black perspective" or "how will black people think about this". An individual doesn't represent anyone beyond themselves and, ironically, it is racist to think otherwise. A black engineer is there to do the job of an engineer, not tell you what his racial group will think. If you want to know what a demographic will think of something you use surveys, focus groups, and market research - DEI is not relevant.

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#12
post #7

Expect to have to install an app for every store you want to go into over the next few years with all the accompanying snooping. This tech is a wet dream for retailers. Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.

And then expect Apple to come along with a solution that 1. Protects your privacy and 2. Locks you into their ecosystem even more

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#13
post #4
post #2

SNL satire of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS9U3Gc832Y

This is the best example as to why DEI for companies matters. A room full of white & asian men would likely not pick up on this prior to the launch.

They’d probably pilot the store in a couple target markets to find issues, then prioritize and solve issues. I don’t think skin color or gender makes one worse at launching products.

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#15
Meh - I was excited by JWO but it now looks like self-checkout will win because it works pretty well these days, and it handles all the corner cases including product sold by weight, large items, identical-looking items (common in grocery), etc.

With self-checkout, you don't need an account which is crucial for travelers. Self-checkout also supports cash for the unbanked.

I've tried SC in multiple countries, just hit the button for English, scan, scan, scan, weight, scan, scan, scan, checkout, touch my credit card, go.

Late night in Stockholm train station, I bought one bottle of fizzy water and checkout added 30 seconds or so.

Obviously, from place to place you sometimes get "rough edges" with mis-scans etc but JWO has its own problems.

I'm not even sure how much floor space JWO saves vs self-checkout.

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#16
post #15

Meh - I was excited by JWO but it now looks like self-checkout will win because it works pretty well these days, and it handles all the corner cases including product sold by weight, large items, identical-looking items (common in grocery), etc. With self-checkout, you don't need an account which is crucial for travelers. Self-checkout also supports cash for the unbanked. I've tried SC in multiple countries, just hit…

> With self-checkout, you don't need an account which is crucial for travelers.

At non-Amazon branded JWO locations you insert a credit card in the machine when you walk in, no account needed. I recently encountered one like this at an airport.

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#17
post #7

Expect to have to install an app for every store you want to go into over the next few years with all the accompanying snooping. This tech is a wet dream for retailers. Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.

And then expect Apple to come along with a solution that 1. Protects your privacy and 2. Locks you into their ecosystem even more

There’s not much room for privacy when you can only shop there by scanning a barcode linked to your account and having cameras pointed at you that are likely reading your emotions/seeing if you pick up an item then put it back (as the OP pointed out).

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#18
post #6

> 60 percent of respondents state that long wait times to check out are a major concern while shopping in a store. The report also revealed that 80 percent of retail executive respondents believe that smart checkout is one of the most important solutions to invest in over the next five years. The local Kroger instances here have these handheld things you can use to scan items as you put them in your cart rather than…

Walmart+ app allows you to scan items with your phone as you pick them up. Then, when you reach the self-checkout, you just scan a QR code and you are "checked out". I wish you didn't need to do the self-checkout thing, and could just finalize the transaction entirely from your phone, but other than that it is pretty good.

When this was piloted years ago at Sam’s Club (subsidiary of Walmart Inc) it was possible, but only because their door team was able to scan it before you walked out.

Re: AWS Just Walk Out Technology

#20
post #7

Expect to have to install an app for every store you want to go into over the next few years with all the accompanying snooping. This tech is a wet dream for retailers. Who needs store cards when they can just see in realtime what you're picking up and putting back, along with your demographic data.

You mean like trying to drive through Germany in an electric car and having multiple standards/vendors for the chargers each with their own app, no cash, no maestro or credit card option. Especially funny when in an area with poor mobile reception (basically rendering the charger somewhat useless).

Having these competing non-standards is a pita for customers as well as for adoption. I would think that it would be the same for jwo.

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