Amazon's targeting airports, baseball stadiums, and movie theaters with cashier-less "Go" tech
1 bucket of popcorn, 1 large DP, and don't miss the previews... CNBC reported that Amazon is in talks with airport convenience stores (CIBO Markets), movie theaters (Regal Theaters), and stadiums to license its Amazon Go cashier-less tech. Scan your phone when you enter, take what you want, leave — your Prime account gets charged, you don't miss the touchdown.
Amazon is the master of customer adoption... This tech is freaky (we've tried it). Cameras and sensors are all up in your space (and humans aren't). But Amazon's rolling this out to customers thoughtfully and gradually, first to those most-likely to adopt:
- Early adopters: Amazon's got 16 of its own "Go" stores, visited by city-dwellers eager to brag to friends about the lack of lines.
- People in a rush: If your flight already started boarding, you'll love not waiting 10 minutes in line for a pack of gum.
- Mainstream: Amazon could add thousands of "No-Go" stores (that's what we're calling non-Amazon stores using Amazon Go tech), making friends out of would-be retail competitors. Amazon wants hundreds of these by 2020.
Software is way more profitable than physical stuff... Amazon's ecommerce operation ships a massive 10B products per year. But its way-smaller Amazon Web Services is the profit puppy, making over 50% of company profits through cloud services. Two tech companies in today's Snacks are following similar strategies:
- Driver brains: Waymo is selling its self-driving software to carmakers (but not actually making cars itself).
- Cashier brains: Amazon could sell human-less cashier and payment software to retailers (but not actually making stores itself).