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>Does the company actually think they could leave the store open with no employees present?

No

>Do they even have a reasonable premise that fewer cashiers even means fewer employees? (Someone needs to be there to help people who don't have the app, or to watch that no one jumps the turnstiles, or to keep the place clean, or to restock the shelves.)

Yes, it seems pretty obvious you reduce the labor that needs to be done per customer, you reduce your marginal cost of labor per customer (and replace with fixed and RD costs).

>And what about the software itself? Do the cameras keep track of the inventory correctly? What if a customer puts a product back down in the wrong place? How much awareness does the software actually have? Is it tracking your phone or you? Does it attempt to deal with scams (can you bring an empty boxed meal kit into the store, replace a new one from the shelf with the empty, and then walk out)?

Amazon isn't incompetent at software, and finding any edgecases they hadn't considered is precisely why they need to run this experiment on a small scale.

> This is a vanity experiment, nothing more.

That is pretty obtuse. This is far more than a 'vanity' experiment. Even if Amazon never launches this beyond one store, Amazon is experimenting to gain a unique understanding of the potential future of offline-retail (which is important as offline-retail based companies like Walmart continue to directly compete with them by moving online.)

Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods seems to indicate that they are serious about exploring offline-retail and are not simply looking for free advertising from a credulous press. (Although I'm sure that doesn't hurt.)

You're of course right that this first store isn't turning a profit in itself.

But I'm sure it's far more than a vanity experiment. If it's possible to build a more effective store this way, Amazon will figure it out, and in 5-10 years there will be thousands of them across the world.

To answer some easy questions:

>> The idea the author floats that this type of place could ever be open with no staff present is ludicrous.

No on has ever said the store will have no staff present. At the very, very basics: it sells alcohol and is in the United States. It has staff present. Not to mention security, stocking, etc.

The value proposition is a lower margin cost and better customer experience, not zero staff.

>> The store has a bunch of ready-to-eat and semi-prepared bundles that hit a very narrow niche in the grocery market. There are a few pre-packaged name-brand products, but everything is arranged in a highly regimented manner, and the store is very small. It's revealing to note what's missing: any fresh produce whatsoever.

What does this have to do with the store's ability to scale? How does pre-packaged food (perishable) differ from fresh produce (perishable) if they decide to stock produce? Are you worried about Amazon's ability to handle logistics?

An initial test location in a limited space (this is downtown Seattle) has to have customers and they identified pre-packaged food and consumable items like wine as what the customers in the area wanted, not a scaled down Whole Foods.

>> And what about the software itself? Do the cameras keep track of the inventory correctly? What if a customer puts a product back down in the wrong place? How much awareness does the software actually have? Is it tracking your phone or you? Does it attempt to deal with scams (can you bring an empty boxed meal kit into the store, replace a new one from the shelf with the empty, and then walk out)?

The store has been in private beta to thousands of Amazon employees for over a year. It's safe to assume they're confident in their technology. Other tech sites have been given permission to try and trick the software. They failed.

>> Now, I don't think Amazon is really thinking that sort of thing is imminent, or that they are actually going to make money from this store. This is a vanity experiment, nothing more. They are getting lots of free advertising from a credulous press, and that's plenty sufficient for them.

Even if this were true, you fail to make the case here.

>What does this have to do with the store's ability to scale? How does pre-packaged food (perishable) differ from fresh produce (perishable) if they decide to stock produce?

Unless it's all packaged, produce needs to be weighed. Produce is one of the main ways that self-checkout, even for small purchases, really breaks down in grocery stores today. One of my local supermarkets has switched to mostly self-service and I've largely switched to a different chain specifically for that reason.

Have they ever said that these stores would be 100% free of staff? Someone has to stock the shelves and prepare the food.

Maybe they'll offer produce in individually wrapped portions, or a tiny Kiva robot will bring it to you, or a robot arm, or edible NFC tags... I'm sure they are thinking about it. To just write it off because you thought of a few corner cases is premature IMO.

Not to mention what happens when this store gets robbed blind and the PR fallout form that event. I know it’s unlikely, but something like that could have very damaging effects on whether this will see widespread adoption.

I’m only saying this because I’ve lived in bad enough neighborhoods where I don’t think just having a single person at the door is going to stop a robbery. Unless it has some sort of auto locking, store lockdown feature.

You are correct, if Amazon Go stores end up being targets for robbery that would damage roll out of additional stores the problem is that I can't think of how any one could rob them blind. The primary problem being that there is no cash to steal in the store and the goods all have low price to bulk ratios making them just plain difficult to steal. They just aren't worth robbing. Not that someone won't try anyway.

That isn't to say they couldn't be targeted by shoplifters, but that is a huge difference from being robbed blind. And even here the store has two advantages in that login with the app is required to even enter and the whole store is covered with sensors and cameras in addition to the staff.

As for the PR fallout I'd actually be interested to see how that goes, how much biometric data Amazon was able to gather on them even with a mask and/or bulky clothes, how the security features of the store actually work.

Are would be robbers really that interested in stealing tuna nicioise salad boxes and quinoa wraps? Robbers want cash from the till and things they can fence quickly, seeing as this store doesn't deal with cash, I suspect the only petty thefts will be people circumventing the camera/sensor technology to steal their protein enriched breakfasts shakes

They sell alcohol, I would imagine that would be worth taking to some.

A normal store doesn’t even have the turnstiles. Just grab your stuff and walk out casually. How do they keep from getting robbed? Why is this different? At least in the Go store, the system can presumably detect people who haven’t badged in / jumped the turnstile, before they actually do anything.

The local news here says the stores will be staffed. There's just no checkouts.

More to your point, when you have as much money as Amazon, you can afford to throw every idea at the wall and see what works. If you generate a crap ton of publicity along the way, that's just gravy.

True, even as a vanity project it could increase Amazon's share price by enough to justify the effort, even if it fails.