- Amazon Go Works in New York
The Amazon Inc automated convenience stores, Amazon Go, was a success in New York, according to customers in the busy city.
The partly automated self-service convenience stores are without a cashier checkout station.
A year after the first Amazon Go store opened in Seatle, Washington, it opens the New York store in May 2019.
The new store, doubted at first, has now been validated by the impressed customers who think it will revolutionise the retail industry.
Rus Loeffler, 26, one of the customers who visited the Manhattan story on Monday, said: “I’m kind of impressed by it. It works really well. The concept looks like it can be on the money. I thought it has a lot of potential.”
Loeffler also added that this concept will be popular “especially for people in my age, millennials, who are listening to their music” on headphones, he told me. “If I want to be anti-social, I can just go in and leave without talking to people. I go to (Amazon’s) Whole Foods, and I stand in line for 15 minutes. You just walk right out here.”
Amazon is now looking to open at least 3,000 Amazon Go stores by 2021 and even perfecting a plan to expand to London, airports and college campuses.
Mark Mahaney, an analyst with RBC, described Amazon Go as a game changer for the physical retail experience.
He estimated that the cashierless stores could generate $4.5 billion in sales if Amazon opens 3,000 stores.
He, however, said it would take the tech giant two years to breakeven given the cost of cameras, sensors and other hardware used to power the stores.
Amazon Go has a total of 13 stores in the US and it is expected to open its 14th in San Francisco, California soon.