Customers must download the Amazon Go app before shopping at the store. The app allows users to add others to their Amazon account, so kids and a spouse’s purchases can be charged to the same bill. The ceiling of the store has multiple cameras and store shelves have weight sensors, to detect which item(s) a customer took. If a customer takes an item off the shelf, it will be added to the person’s virtual cart. If a customer places an item back on the shelf, it is “taken out” of the virtual cart.
When you are done, you just walk out. No lines, no checkout.
Less than a month following our trip to Russia, and after a few days stay in Europe, I flew to a Shanghai event straight from Los Angeles. As I had journeyed into several wildly different environments within a rather short time, the features peculiar to Chinese culture struck me all the more glaringly.
