Amazon launches smart grocery cart, automates physical retail checkout

E-commerce giant Amazon has reportedly debuted a smart grocery cart, called ‘Dash Cart’, complete with sensors, cameras, and a scale to detect and log products on digital displays. The technology has been launched to make it easier for shoppers to leave the store as opposed to standing in a long checkout line.
Dash Cart is pretty much similar to the Amazon Go grocery and convenience stores, sans the technical infrastructure. It works by itself, without the necessity of sensors to be installed on the shelves or cameras overhead.
Dilip Kumar, Vice President, Physical retail and technology, Amazon, has been quoted to say that the firm built this technology mainly as a substitute to stuff such as express checkout, wherein customers are still waiting in line, or are perhaps fumbling with self-checkout machines. Dash Cart’s experience will help in a convenient, seamless, and easy-to-understand checkout process for customers, Kumar added.
It is to be noted however, that the Dash Cart, unlike the Amazon Go technology, will not completely replace conventional grocery store checkouts. It’s designed for small and medium-sized grocery trips and has the capacity for one to two grocery bags only. Neither is it deemed to reduce the workforce at the stores where it is used. In fact, even at the stores where it is deployed, traditional checkouts will continue to function in a similar manner, and there will be more number of employees who will direct customers regarding how to use these Dash Carts.
Customers using the Dash Carts will be required to scan a QR code in the Amazon app and log in to the cart. The system is designed in a way that it will automatically charge them from the stored card in their Amazon account during the time they exit through the special “Dash Cart Lane.” Customers will receive a receipt through email once they checkout.
For the uninitiated, the Dash Cart is likely to debut somewhere later this year at Amazon’s new grocery store at Woodland Hills, California.
 
Source Credits: https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazon-unveils-smart-grocery-cart-new-effort-automate-physical-retail-checkout/