First UK Amazon Go Store Expected To Open This Week

According to The Mail, Amazon will open its first checkout-free Amazon Go store in the UK some time this week.

To use the store, customers will have to download the Amazon Go app on their smartphone and scan it upon entering the store.  The Amazon Go shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Its 'Just Walk Out' technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When a customer has finished shopping, they can just leave the store. Shortly after, Amazon will charge the customer's account and send them a receipt.

The new store is understood to be opening in Ealing, West London, and is Amazon's first Go store outside the US.  The first Amazon Go store opened in Seattle in early 2018. 

Given its pre-existing relationship with Amazon as the provider of groceries for the Amazon Fresh service, Morrisons is expected to supply the store's products.

Amazon submitted trademark applications to protect the Amazon Go brand in the UK and Europe in December 2016 and was understood to have been seeking sites of between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet in size for the stores. 

Much speculation followed about a potential location and, in February 2019, it was reported that Amazon had obtained retail space in London for its first store.  Eighteen months later, The Times revealed that Amazon had 'struck deals to open more than 10 Amazon Go convenience stores', advising that the online marketplace was in talks over a further 20 branches.

In August 2020, The Times reported that Amazon would be opening its first Go store by the end of the year. 

The article suggests that another 30 stores are already planned for the UK.

Source : Insight DIY Team

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