• The Amazon Go store will allow shoppers to pick up items and leave
  • The etailer will link products customers select to their mobile app automatically
  • The Seattle-based store will be open to the public early next year

Amazon has launched a bricks-and-mortar grocery store that links purchases to shoppers’ mobiles, allowing them to pay for items without queuing at tills.

The online retail titan’s latest push into bricks and mortar is called Amazon Go.

The 1,800 sq ft shop will require shoppers to download a corresponding app and scan their mobile phone upon entering the store, after which it will use CCTV footage and sensors to track which items customers have taken off the shelves to purchase.

All purchases are collated into a receipt and sent directly to the customer’s smartphone once they leave the store.

Any item that a shopper decides not to buy in-store will be deducted from their receipt upon being placed back on the shelf it was picked up from.

Amazon has opened its first automatic payment-enabled grocery store near its headquarters in Seattle, where it also opened its first bookshop last November.

It is initially only open to the online behemoth’s employees, but will be open to the public early next year.

Sainsbury’s is the only grocery retailer in the UK to come close to Amazon’s new proposition.

The supermarket giant is trialling its SmartShop app in 10 stores, allowing customers to scan items using their smartphone as they shop, before scanning a QR code at the end to make payment. 

A statement from Amazon said it had combined “computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning” to create the technology necessary to allow shoppers to pay for items in-store without putting them through a till, which has been developed over the past four years.

Amazon has not said whether Amazon Go will be linked to its Fresh offer, which launched in the UK in June.

The online retailer has been running its Fresh proposition in parts of the US since 2007 and has expanded the service rapidly. It is now available in Seattle, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Connecticut, New Jersey, Baltimore and parts of California.

The launch of the Amazon Go store comes after the business opened a bookshop in its hometown last year. Further bookstores are poised to open in in San Diego, New York, Portland and Chicago in the near future.

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