In some ways, grocery shopping has changed little over the last 100 or so years — at least when it comes to brick-and-mortar stores.

You walk into a store, load up your cart, head to the checkout counter, the clerk tallies your items, and you pay.

Today, most items are scanned instead of having a clerk punch prices into a cash register, and some stores have self-checkout, but the process is pretty familiar whether you’re age 18 or 88.

When Amazon publicly introduced its “Just Walk Out” technology in 2018, it aimed to revolutionize the in-person shopping and checkout process, especially in some of its Fresh stores.

The idea for Just Walk Out in Amazon Fresh stores was simple: Customers share a payment method upon entering the store and then Amazon uses AI-powered cameras and sensors to track the items customers leave the store with, automatically charging the payment method on record.

“What we’ve done over the last almost decade is take the core computer vision-based technology from the Go store and externalize it as a product in different forms,” Vice President of Just Walk Out Rajiv Chopra explained in Silicon Angle. 

The company envisioned a new shopping experience, but one former Amazon Fresh leader says he warned leaders Amazon would never be able to make it work. 

Amazon Fresh was supposed to offer a whole new grocery shopping experience. 

Image source: Shutterstock

What to know about Amazon Fresh and “Just Walk Out”

“I tried to get Amazon to shut down all Amazon Fresh stores in the U.S. and UK in 2017, 2020, and 2023. You cannot launch a grocery retailer centered around technology only,” former Worldwide Expansion Leader for Amazon Fresh Brittain Ladd wrote on LinkedIn.

Turns out he was right, at least in the UK: Amazon is shutting down its Amazon Fresh experiment in the UK, closing all 19 stores just four years after debuting the checkout-free format.

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The move is the latest sign of how difficult it has been for the tech giant to crack the grocery market, overseas and in the U.S.

In both countries, Amazon has struggled to define what its grocery business should be.

In the U.S., Amazon Fresh stores remain open in several states, but growth has slowed and the company has moved away from the Just Walk Out technology in favor of Dash Carts and traditional self-checkout.

Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired in 2017, remains its most reliable grocery brand, but one that appeals primarily to higher-income urban shoppers.

Why Amazon’s Just Walk Out concept didn’t hit a home run

Amazon launched its Fresh stores in London in 2021 with plans for hundreds more. With sensors and AI handling payments, customers could grab items and leave without stopping at a checkout counter.

Rivals such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s rolled out their own cashierless trials, while also keeping traditional checkouts.

UK analysts say Amazon never carved out a clear grocery identity — shoppers didn’t know if it was supposed to be cheaper, higher quality, or more convenient than its competitors.

The result is a retreat from the standalone Fresh locations, with five stores to be converted into Whole Foods Markets.

U.S. plans for Just Walk Out grocery purchase technology

The UK exit may represent the writing on the wall for the U.S.

Amazon has already paused some U.S. Amazon Fresh expansion plans and is experimenting with store redesigns. Industry watchers say the same problem persists: customers like Whole Foods for premium options, but Amazon Fresh has struggled to attract mainstream grocery shoppers who already trust Kroger, Walmart, or regional chains.

Related: Whole Foods decision won’t be popular with employees (or shoppers)

This summer, Amazon confirmed it was phasing out Just Walk Out technology in U.S. Fresh stores, replacing it with Dash Carts. These are smart carts that track purchases as you shop. 

The idea is to give customers more flexibility while avoiding the friction of forcing everyone through a single, unproven tech system.

This shift underscores that in groceries, price and convenience matter more than futuristic technology.

What Amazon’s retreat from Just Walk Out means for U.S. shoppers

In the U.S., industry experts say Amazon may eventually follow the same path as it did in the UK — concentrating on Whole Foods while pulling back on experimental Fresh stores that never delivered the scale Amazon once envisioned.

“It hasn’t delivered anything that it promises,” Christopher Andrews, author of “The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy,” told the BBC. 

“Stores saw this as the next frontier… If they could get the consumer to think that [self-checkout] was a preferable way to shop, then they could cut labour costs,” Andrews said. “But they’re finding that people need help doing it, or that they’ll steal stuff. They ended up realising that they’re not saving money, they’re losing money.”

For U.S. shoppers, Amazon’s rollback of Just Walk Out means checkout lines aren’t disappearing anytime soon. 

Instead of cashierless tech, most grocery trips will still rely on self-checkout, Dash Carts, or traditional lanes, just as Walmart and Kroger dominate the market.

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