Cashier-less store carries about 5,000 items

SEATTLE — Amazon upsized its Amazon Go checkout-free store concept on Tuesday with the opening of its first Amazon Go Grocery store, which measures 10,400 square feet and carries about 5,000 products, including perishables like fresh meat and produce, and household items like paper towels.

The new store is more than four times the size of the typical Amazon Go store, which offers a much more limited assortment of grab-and-go food and beverage items. The first Amazon Go store was located on the Amazon campus in Seattle and opened to the public in January 2018. That store was only about 1,800 square feet in size.

Amazon now has about 25 of the smaller Amazon Go stores.

The Amazon Go Grocery store is built on the same technology as those stores. Customers use the Amazon Go app on their mobile device to enter the store. They then simply grab what they want from the shelf and put it in a bag as they shop, while cameras and sensors in the store keep track of what they’ve taken. Customers just walk out of the store when they’re done shopping, and the app charges them for their purchases.

Amazon Go Grocery is the company’s latest move in the food retailing business, which it entered in earnest with its 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods Market in a $13.7 billion deal. Amazon is set to open a different supermarket concept in Los Angeles later this year, and the retailer also continues to expand its Amazon Fresh online grocery service. Last year Amazon Fresh was made free for Amazon Prime members.

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