Amazon will continue to promote and sell its Just Walk Out technology to third-party retailers and venues, it has confirmed to The Grocer, despite this week announcing the closure of all its checkout-free stores in the UK.
At stores equipped with the technology, customers present their credit card or smartphone at the entrance, pick items, then leave without going through a checkout.
Amazon’s “autonomous shopping experience” technology was first seen in the UK in 2021 at its Amazon Fresh convenience grocery store in Ealing, which was its first physical retail site outside North America.
On Tuesday, the company announced all 19 of its UK Fresh stores were to close, with five to be converted to the Whole Foods Market brand. The move comes after Amazon’s decision last year to strip the technology from its US grocery stores.
Amazon Fresh stores served as the main case study for the technology, which has been adopted by more than 300 third-party travel retailers, sports stadia, entertainment venues, conference centres, theme parks, convenience stores, hospitals, and college campuses globally.
More than 20 of the partner sites are in the UK, including a Market Express convenience store at the ExCeL centre run by firm Levy UK&I; several LittleFresh branded, food-to-go focused stores at electric forecourt sites owned and operated by Gridserve; a self-serve drink and snack bar at The O2 entertainment venue; and a food store and bar at The SSE Arena in Belfast.
Adoption of the tech continues, Amazon only last week announcing its first rollout in France with “digital gourmet canteen” concept Faim, in Lille.
“By choosing Amazon’s Just Walk Out, we wanted to offer our customers a frictionless journey – enter, serve, leave – while remaining true to our mission: making good food accessible to all,” Faim owner Flunch president Baptiste Bayart said.
However, Just Walk Out’s value in a standard supermarket setting has come under doubt.
“What problem is Amazon’s Just Walk Out trying to solve? Just walking out isn’t really an issue for the vast majority for convenience shoppers at convenience occasions. There is no incentive for customers to learn how to deal with it and benefit from it,” said Kien Tan, senior retail advisor at PwC UK
“You either love self-checkouts or you hate them. If you hate self-checkouts, you’re going to hate this because you want to talk to someone. So you’re targeting technophiles. But most of those are happy with a self-checkout. They’re only not happy when there’s a really long queue, but that barely ever happens.”
Sainsbury’s in February stripped Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology from its checkout-free store in Holborn. Purchases at the store – which since 2021 had enabled shoppers to enter with a QR code generated by the Sainsbury’s app, pick their items, then leave – are now made via a customer kiosk with a till and two small self-checkouts.
Sainsbury’s was Amazon’s first non-US customer of its Just Walk Out tech, and marked the first time Amazon had enabled a business customer to use its own app to manage store entry, exit, receipts, and payments for shoppers. The Holborn store was also the first Amazon had retrofitted with Just Walk Out.
“There are many situations where autonomous, checkout-free stores are important and work,” Tan added. “For example, in airports, when people are in a hurry and want only a few SKUs – it makes a lot of sense. In sports stadiums, when you need your beer at half time.
“There are many ways it can solve a consumer problem. Convenience shopping just isn’t one of them.”
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