Amazon’s automated checkout is coming to full-size supermarkets

A customer scans her phone as she enters an Amazon Fresh store. Since launching the Fresh chain in southern California, Amazon has opened 12 stores, with 37 more in development across the US, according to a Bloomberg tally based on permits, state licensing records and news reports. — AFP

Amazon.com Inc is poised to bring its automated checkout technology to full-size supermarkets, a significant milestone in the race to revolutionise how people buy their groceries.

Planning documents for a store under construction in Brookfield, Connecticut, contain all the hallmarks of an Amazon Fresh grocery store: a two-word logo on dark gray panels above the store’s entrance, online order pickup counter and such full-service departments as a butcher. The plans also identify a dozen entry and exit gates as well as ceiling-mounted racks to run wiring to camera arrays, a setup that until now has only appeared in Amazon Go convenience stores.