Last week the second Amazon Go store opened in New York. Located at 300 Park Ave. in midtown Manhattan, the store even offers a self-serving Starbucks coffee bar. There is no denying the fact that Go stores provide a stellar customer experience, no long line of billing queues or check out hustle. There are even few small ‘no cashier’ stores opening around the globe, proving the fact that Go is probably the future of retail. But are there underlying concerns about these new age stores. But what exactly is Amazon Go selling?
When you walk into, more accurately check yourself in, you start to feel something creepy about the whole setup. Of course, there are no cashiers, but you start to wonder how much information are those 100s of cameras and sensors installed are collecting from you. After amazon’s recent hiccup with echo- where it’s revealed that amazon employees listen to 1000s of audio clips recorded by echo, you should be really be scary.
Okay, sensors collecting your personal data may be not something to worry about for most of us- at least for now. Amazon Go’s cheekiest business strategy bundled in this no scan -no wait super smart store is that you really don’t have a clue about how much you are spending. You quickly grab a buffalo chicken wrap or a sandwich and you walkout, but later you start to think was it $2 or $5 bcz you haven’t seen the receipt imagine adding a coffee and couple of chocolate to it- in fact the receipt will take 20-30 min to arrive in your inbox, that too will only show the total. To get an itemised billing you need to go back to the app and check, who is going to do that? It’s the price you pay for you convenience and that’s what amazon is selling at go
And Amazon is coming up with more and more ways to do that. They have recently introduced amazon credit cards to help customers with low credit rate to rebuild their credit rate but the catch- a whooping 28% interest rate. It is said that this move will attract more poor customers to amazon, who otherwise depended on cheap stores such as Walmart, ready to pay extra for convenience.
Bottom line people are always ready to pay for convenience and Amazon will continue to cash in on that
What Amazon Go is Really Selling?
