Have you ever been to those unmanned convenience stores where buying items is simply a matter of registering your credit card on their mobile app and simply walking in and out of their gantry?
Over in America and the United Kingdom, specifically at the supermarket chain Amazon Fresh, they have a similar system known as Just Walk Out.
Despite its convenience, however, Amazon has recently come under fire for various reasons regarding their check-out system, leading them to remove the system entirely going forward, from all existing and upcoming Fresh stores.
What is Just Walk Out?
Just Walk Out was first launched in 2016 in the US, and made its way to the UK in 2021.
The cashierless system allows customers to exit stores without paying at the checkout; instead, charges are automatically processed through their Amazon accounts.
According to Amazon’s website, the Just Walk Out system and analytics helps to optimize shelf productivity, curate offerings, and devise lucrative promotions for enhanced sales, streamline operations by deploying staff effectively and minimizing wastage through precise inventory management, and help stores gain valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors to refine product placement and selection strategies.
JWO, a brainchild of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, aimed to revolutionize the grocery market and eliminate the hassle of waiting in lines, as articulated in Bezos’ 2018 shareholder letter.
“No one likes to wait in line,” then-CEO Bezos wrote in his 2018 letter to shareholders. “Instead, we imagined a store where you could walk in, pick up what you wanted, and leave.”
Sounds like a walk in a park (or… mart?) for shoppers, right?
But what if I told you that instead of using AI, smart cameras or multi-sensor fusion technologies to seamlessly check out of the markets, customers in the US and UK are subjected to the scrutiny of as many as 1,000 workers in India?
Workers in India Acting as “Remote Cashiers”
According to a report in Business Insider, though Amazon claimed its “Just Walk Out” technology relied solely on computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required manual review by a team in India.
In 2022, 700 out of 1,000 transactions underwent verification by these workers.
This had led to various discussions with many viewing this as a deeply intrusive tactic to attract more store patrons while undermining local employment opportunities.
However, an Amazon spokesperson clarified that the India-based team only aided in training the technology.
They stated, “Associates may also validate a small minority of shopping visits where our computer vision technology cannot determine with complete confidence an individual’s purchases.”
Just Walk Out Discontinued in Grocery Stores
In the first week of April 2024, Amazon has decided to nix the entire Just Walk Out development, pulling out from all grocery stores but leaving 130 convenience stores and some Amazon Go locations untouched.
It is alleged that Amazon has also significantly scaled back internal development efforts, leaving the majority of engineers assigned to the Just Walk Out project reportedly laid off. A small team is left behind to support the technology.
While Amazon refuted this claim, stating it was inaccurate, the former employee alleges that only a few engineers and managers remain to sustain Just Walk Out.
“We continue to invest heavily in our Just Walk Out team and technology, and have hundreds of employees working to keep up with the rapid demand,” said an Amazon spokesperson in response to the claims.
It is also alleged that Amazon had internally deliberated pulling Just Walk Out from Fresh grocery stores for about a year, citing the technology’s high costs and complexity for large retail locations. It seemed suitable for small convenience stores due to their simplicity.
Despite this, the Just Walk Out team was surprised by the layoffs. While Amazon had plans to expand Just Walk Out stores in 2024, many of the team members involved in developing the technology have been let go.
After the layoffs, several affected employees expressed their job search on LinkedIn. At least 15 Just Walk Out employees are actively seeking new opportunities, with claims that half of the team was laid off.
In the meantime, Amazon is set to replace Just Walk Out with its Dash Carts at Amazon Fresh stores. These smart shopping carts enable customers to bypass checkout lines by tracking and charging for their selections, albeit requiring them to place items in the cart themselves.
The switch comes as customers expressed desire for features like easily locating nearby products, accessing deals, viewing receipts in real-time, and tracking savings during their shopping trips, all of which Dash Cart offers, as stated by an Amazon spokesperson.
Critics have raised concerns about Amazon’s reliance on cheap, outsourced labor instead of providing fair wages locally. Additionally, they question the company’s extensive data collection practices, which include gathering sensitive information on customers’ in-store behavior, raising privacy concerns for shoppers.
Last year, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project initiated a class action lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the company failed to disclose its practice of selling data to Starbucks for profit.
As Amazon shifts its focus to Dash Carts, it remains uncertain whether this technology will address privacy concerns or exacerbate them further.
