A render of Amazon’s upcoming store in Mill Creek. | Image: Amazon
Amazon is bringing its cashierless Just Walk Out technology to a new format of stores aimed at suburbs, the company announced today. The new stores will use the Amazon Go branding that the company already uses for its locations in city centers, but will instead be located further afield where they’ll sell food, snacks, alcohol, and “a few every day essentials.”
They’re convenience stores, basically, and come at a time when a shift to home working means that people are spending more time in the vicinity of their homes rather than commuting into city-based offices. Like its other Just Walk Out stores, Amazon says customers will be able to browse the store, pick up items, and then leave without having to interact with a cashier or self-checkout.
An exact date for the opening of the first of these locations is yet to be announced, but Amazon says the 6,150 square foot store will be located in Mill Creek, WA when it opens in the coming months. Mill Creek is about 20 miles north of Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, where its first Amazon Go store opened in 2018. Amazon also plans to bring the format to the LA-metro area in the future.
Amazon now operates dozens of its own-branded retail locations, many of them with its Just Walk Out technology. As well as its smaller Amazon Go stores, the company also has larger Amazon Go Grocery and Amazon Fresh stores. This expansion comes as the operating costs of Amazon’s retail technology has reportedly plummeted by as much as 96 percent since 2017, according to Business Insider.