Cashierless technology needs to work in more than just tiny spaces to become mainstream, and there are strong signals Amazon’s looking for different kinds of venues as it pursues its goal of opening 3,000 Amazon Go stores.
Amazon Go is seeking locations in airports, according to Reuters. Airports would provide a way to bring Amazon Go to spaces beyond the relatively small storefronts at Go’s early locations in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Amazon would not comment.
An turnstile entrance to the Amazon Go store is seen in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. After more than a year of testing with an employee-only focus group, Amazon Go opens to the public Monday in downtown Seattle, putting to the test the online retailer's technology that lets shoppers grab what they want and leave without paying a cashier. Photographer: Mike Kane/Bloomberg
Mike Kane/Bloomberg
It’s also a technology-ready venue. Consumers frequently use mobile apps to check in for flights, so the habit’s already established. And mobile payment technology has been expanding at airports for years, with mobile pay deployments at LaGuardia Airport as early as 2015 and beacon-supported payments technology debuting at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in 2015.
More recently, Alipay has established a presence in many U.S. airports and WeChat Pay has become a payment option at London’s Heathrow Airport. And Chase Pay on Friday announced a plan to expand its presence in airports through a partnership with airline payment network UATP.
Amazon is also looking at larger spaces for Amazon Go to accommodate larger stores, including Amazon’s own Whole Foods chain and larger spaces in the U.K.
Along with cashierless store development from fintechs and Walmart, the trend would tailor the technology for specific stores, rather than designing the stores to accommodate no-cashier checkout.
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