Amazon Fresh, take 2

[HCal]

Interesting that they are keeping Just Walk Out at the Amazon Go stores. Perhaps it works better in small format, or perhaps they are planning to use those stores to keep trying to improve the technology.

[ClownLoach]

Interesting that they are keeping Just Walk Out at the Amazon Go stores. Perhaps it works better in small format, or perhaps they are planning to use those stores to keep trying to improve the technology.

It seems to work just fine in small environments with multiple facings and very few SKUs.

For example if you have been to an event at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, nearly every concession stand uses Just Walk Out and they're called "Markets." No counter you line up at, instead it's like a corral or shop you walk into through the same kind of gates. They do meter the number of people with employees who also have to check ID on alcohol purchases, so really no staffing savings at all. They seem to try to keep the count in each corral or stall to about a dozen people. But for anyone who has been to a big event you know how long it takes to get served at traditional concession stands, it's like watching paint dry. With this technology it is easy peasy, grab a beer and a snack and walk out. The line to get in moves constantly and only takes a minute or so, while I could tell you a hundred times I've waited an entire intermission at other arenas to get a snack at a stand that moves at a snails pace.

I also think the dirty secret as to why it works so well in those environments is because of the pricing model. If someone grabs a Coors Light and the system accidentally rings up a regular Coors, who cares? The pricing is the same for a beer, a candy bar, etc. This seems to be the perfect solution for a small, low SKU count facility with no real need for SKU inventory accuracy and everything in a category priced the same. It probably can really use AI there too because it's just trying to determine if you have a beer or a tray of nachos, not too hard for it to decide. Doubt it has to make many calls to the India call center.

[ClownLoach]

I have a better idea for their elementary school "Just Walk Out" system- put the camera ON the cart itself. Take a photo of all cart contents as they enter the card and tally them up that way. All those cameras overhead looking "straight down" on everything, strike me as a huge privacy issue among other things.

Well they had that with the dash cart. The old version just captured everything as it went into the cart. The new version is more of a manual scanning process. I have used both and the original is far superior, but allegedly it was costing an eye-watering $25,000 per cart.

No, the carts would not go outside. There are some kind of proprietary towers like Sensormatic or Checkpoint that lock the cart down, and unlike the traditional wheel locks these things are heavy. No way you could just drag it along etc. And alarms go off, and I could be wrong but I think the door won't open either. They seemed to be very worried about losing these carts.

What I think is the most outrageous thing about the failed Fresh experiment is the people cost. They aggressively recruited tens of thousands of people to this organization. Many people from Target who were doing well in their careers. They were offered significant raises and bonuses to come over, and it's Amazon not some questionable shady start up. Some of these stores had more employees than a good volume Walmart Supercenter. And pretty much everyone has been let go as they now run skeleton crews. These stores that had a couple dozen managers and supervisors allegedly have just a few people now. It sounds like the entire "Fresh headquarters" has been let go and the Whole Foods people have taken over. But tens of thousands of people should not have churned through this organization, especially when Just Walk Out tech was promised to be the key differentiator that would make them successful and thus make the careers of these people successful too. I think the many people who were let go deserve more than whatever severance they received previously because they were recruited under false pretenses. They gave up good jobs for what did turn out to be a sleazy, lying, fake start up.

[pseudo3d]

I also think the dirty secret as to why it works so well in those environments is because of the pricing model. If someone grabs a Coors Light and the system accidentally rings up a regular Coors, who cares? The pricing is the same for a beer, a candy bar, etc. This seems to be the perfect solution for a small, low SKU count facility with no real need for SKU inventory accuracy and everything in a category priced the same. It probably can really use AI there too because it's just trying to determine if you have a beer or a tray of nachos, not too hard for it to decide. Doubt it has to make many calls to the India call center.

Knowing what item is what is helpful for the store because it helps them determine what sells and what doesn't. Back when dollar stores sold everything for a dollar, they still had different SKUs.

[J-Man]

And it required strange pricing, such as salad bars priced by container instead of weight and produce/meat by the unit. I saw people cheating the system with salad containers overflowing and taking all the meat off the salad bar.

But doesn't that same issue persist in stores with the Smart Cart system? Everything is still priced by the unit, no? And in the AF stores near me, when they removed JWO (last year), they brought in Smart Carts.

[veteran+]

What a total and complete scam.

I'd love to know more about that camp resort Dollar General who uses a different "Just Walk Out" technology that nobody has ever heard of and find out how exactly it works.

I really wonder how much of the stock value has this fake technology baked into it. Shareholders should be pissed about this and the ongoing lack of transparency on fixing or killing Fresh.

The analysts were falling over themselves about Just Walk Out being such a huge thing. This is a complete scam of a technology. This is useless. This isn't even technology. A group of kids in grade school could come up with this type of a plan to put cameras everywhere and have people watch the cameras and run up a tab as you shop. Someone could have come up with this type of "technology" 25 years ago.

What do you think the average customer would have thought if they knew "Just Walk Out" was being watched by 1,000 person team in a camera room somewhere (forget about saying where, even if it was in the back of the store)... the customers assumed this was automated technology. I would venture a guess the average customer would have been much less comfortable if they knew the process was not automated and some potential creep in a camera room was following them around the store with a camera, especially numerous cameras that point directly "down" at the customer and contents of their cart.

I have a better idea for their elementary school "Just Walk Out" system- put the camera ON the cart itself. Take a photo of all cart contents as they enter the card and tally them up that way. All those cameras overhead looking "straight down" on everything, strike me as a huge privacy issue among other things.

SPOT ON!!!!!!

[veteran+]

I have a better idea for their elementary school "Just Walk Out" system- put the camera ON the cart itself. Take a photo of all cart contents as they enter the card and tally them up that way. All those cameras overhead looking "straight down" on everything, strike me as a huge privacy issue among other things.

Well they had that with the dash cart. The old version just captured everything as it went into the cart. The new version is more of a manual scanning process. I have used both and the original is far superior, but allegedly it was costing an eye-watering $25,000 per cart.

No, the carts would not go outside. There are some kind of proprietary towers like Sensormatic or Checkpoint that lock the cart down, and unlike the traditional wheel locks these things are heavy. No way you could just drag it along etc. And alarms go off, and I could be wrong but I think the door won't open either. They seemed to be very worried about losing these carts.

What I think is the most outrageous thing about the failed Fresh experiment is the people cost. They aggressively recruited tens of thousands of people to this organization. Many people from Target who were doing well in their careers. They were offered significant raises and bonuses to come over, and it's Amazon not some questionable shady start up. Some of these stores had more employees than a good volume Walmart Supercenter. And pretty much everyone has been let go as they now run skeleton crews. These stores that had a couple dozen managers and supervisors allegedly have just a few people now. It sounds like the entire "Fresh headquarters" has been let go and the Whole Foods people have taken over. But tens of thousands of people should not have churned through this organization, especially when Just Walk Out tech was promised to be the key differentiator that would make them successful and thus make the careers of these people successful too. I think the many people who were let go deserve more than whatever severance they received previously because they were recruited under false pretenses. They gave up good jobs for what did turn out to be a sleazy, lying, fake start up.

Amazing what corps get away with. Never taking responsibiltiy and pointing the finger at others like employees, "regulations", competitors, customers, Unions, etc. And yet the system is fundamentally designed for Them.

[ClownLoach]

And it required strange pricing, such as salad bars priced by container instead of weight and produce/meat by the unit. I saw people cheating the system with salad containers overflowing and taking all the meat off the salad bar.

But doesn't that same issue persist in stores with the Smart Cart system? Everything is still priced by the unit, no? And in the AF stores near me, when they removed JWO (last year), they brought in Smart Carts.

No. The Smart Cart stores are scanning bar codes. They did not have weird pricing when they first opened.

Also what stores had the technology removed? Amazon has not acknowledged any removal of this technology other than saying now it will be removed in the future. It would have required extensive work to remove it, unless it was just turned off. My understanding is the stores that were remodeled last year never had the tech in the first place. Not all Amazon Fresh stores had Just Walk Out, another major problem for the chain as they were trying to introduce themselves to the customer as a new option but they had stores that operated in completely different manners. It was likely that if they went to store "A" it would be Dash Carts and traditional checkout lanes, but if they went to store "B" it would be regular carts, Just Walk Out gates, and unit pricing. This confusion was very bad for the brand.

[ClownLoach]

I also think the dirty secret as to why it works so well in those environments is because of the pricing model. If someone grabs a Coors Light and the system accidentally rings up a regular Coors, who cares? The pricing is the same for a beer, a candy bar, etc. This seems to be the perfect solution for a small, low SKU count facility with no real need for SKU inventory accuracy and everything in a category priced the same. It probably can really use AI there too because it's just trying to determine if you have a beer or a tray of nachos, not too hard for it to decide. Doubt it has to make many calls to the India call center.

Knowing what item is what is helpful for the store because it helps them determine what sells and what doesn't. Back when dollar stores sold everything for a dollar, they still had different SKUs.

They know what's selling in these stadium concession stands anyway, it isn't hard to figure it out. They started the night with 20 cases of Coors Light, 15 Cases of Coors and 20 cases of Budweiser. Night has ended and there is none left. The item totals come out and they're maybe missing ten cans so there's your shrink. These places are getting entire truckloads of beer manually ordered anyway. It's a different, very "data light" process that this system is good for. Real retail needs far more than this is apparently capable of from both a data and accuracy perspective. Can you imagine how long a scanner company would be in business if it scanned a barcode at less than 100% accuracy? This was effectively just that, a barcode scanner that got it wrong 7 out of 10 times.

Obviously in a full SKU environment like a grocery store they need all the data. My entire point is that this system works fine and appears to be miraculous to the customer when you adjust all the variables in it's favor such as pricing and limiting the SKU count. It works great in these concession stand type places where they have sold some licenses to Six Flags and others. It did not work at all in a SKU dense environment with hundreds of cans that look the same but have different prices, bottles the same, etc. nor was it a good idea to sell salad bars by the container instead of weight. They had to upset the apple cart to make it work in the grocery store, indicating it was far from being ready for prime time.

Looking at the headlines today, Amazon is getting a lot of bad press over the call center in India running this. I expect they will lose many existing Just Walk Out technology customers over this matter as they will not be happy to find out that the cameras in their theme parks, libraries etc. are being watched overseas or really anywhere. Everyone is calling it a fraud. Which is what it is. If this doesn't quiet down in the next day or so I expect institutional investors to be demanding changes at Amazon and executives to be dismissed. I also wonder if the SEC is going to investigate them as they basically promised this technology was working and it's value was baked into the value of the stock. This was a vapor ware product and possibly the most expensive one of all time. I said before when I toured a Just Walk Out Fresh store with a network engineer that he priced the camera arrays, wiring runs etc. in the 8 figures. It is very likely that they spent more on the wiring, sensors etc. than they spent on the fixtures, refrigeration, lighting etc. as the store was built out.

I'm not sure why anyone here is surprised. I posted on here years ago that these cameras are being manually reviewed by real people in a call center if the AI can't figure out the purchase, the same call center that you are connected to if you complain about being overcharged. In chats with them they even acknowledged they were pulling up the video to review your concern of overcharge.

[ClownLoach]

I have a better idea for their elementary school "Just Walk Out" system- put the camera ON the cart itself. Take a photo of all cart contents as they enter the card and tally them up that way. All those cameras overhead looking "straight down" on everything, strike me as a huge privacy issue among other things.

Well they had that with the dash cart. The old version just captured everything as it went into the cart. The new version is more of a manual scanning process. I have used both and the original is far superior, but allegedly it was costing an eye-watering $25,000 per cart.

No, the carts would not go outside. There are some kind of proprietary towers like Sensormatic or Checkpoint that lock the cart down, and unlike the traditional wheel locks these things are heavy. No way you could just drag it along etc. And alarms go off, and I could be wrong but I think the door won't open either. They seemed to be very worried about losing these carts.

What I think is the most outrageous thing about the failed Fresh experiment is the people cost. They aggressively recruited tens of thousands of people to this organization. Many people from Target who were doing well in their careers. They were offered significant raises and bonuses to come over, and it's Amazon not some questionable shady start up. Some of these stores had more employees than a good volume Walmart Supercenter. And pretty much everyone has been let go as they now run skeleton crews. These stores that had a couple dozen managers and supervisors allegedly have just a few people now. It sounds like the entire "Fresh headquarters" has been let go and the Whole Foods people have taken over. But tens of thousands of people should not have churned through this organization, especially when Just Walk Out tech was promised to be the key differentiator that would make them successful and thus make the careers of these people successful too. I think the many people who were let go deserve more than whatever severance they received previously because they were recruited under false pretenses. They gave up good jobs for what did turn out to be a sleazy, lying, fake start up.

Amazing what corps get away with. Never taking responsibiltiy and pointing the finger at others like employees, "regulations", competitors, customers, Unions, etc. And yet the system is fundamentally designed for Them.

Well let's see if they do get away with it now that the genie is out of the bottle. The press today is outraged that they've been lied to. I expect the SEC to get involved, I'm sure they're going to review every transcript of earnings calls, every word in every report and press release to see if they believe a reasonable investor could have been misled by their discussion of this technology. If they find something and announce they're opening a formal inquiry, I expect employment lawyers will begin rounding up victims of their fraudulent recruiting efforts and filing class action lawsuits basically seeking a lifetime of pay as these people have had their careers disrupted or destroyed. Amazon promised these people that their proprietary technology was the differentiator that would guarantee the success of these stores, and although you could point out problems with execution etc. by these people they were still recruited under false pretenses. I'm sure if they were told that they were signing up for something that wasn't actually ready and working at all yet, the majority of them would have passed on the recruiter because they were already in a good place in their careers.