Going further – with robots
Hot on the heels of the news that Amazon may be looking to launch its checkout-free “Amazon Go” grocery store concept in London, there have been reports that the retail giant is also entertaining the idea of creating “robot-run supermarkets”. According to a report published by the New York Post on Friday (5 February), Amazon has “contemplated a two-story, automated grocery store in which a staff of robots on the floor upstairs grabs and bags items for shoppers below”.
The New York Post said that it had obtained its information from “sources briefed on the plans”.
According to those “sources” the stores would be quite big – “spanning anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 square feet” – but they “could operate with as few as three employees at a time”.
There was no mention of whether these store robots would also be bagging up click & collect orders, ready to be delivered by drone to Amazon Prime members’ homes.
There has been no official comment from Amazon on the New York Post story. But of course the company has been speeding ahead with automation in its warehousing and distribution operations – so if and when it does make a big move into the world of bricks-and-mortar retailing it is fairly safe bet that it will be looking to extract the maximum benefit from robotic technologies.
