Amazon Opens Its Store on the Broadway

No checkout grocery shop requires you to have a smartphone app

The new Amazon store in Ealing. Picture: Amazon

The new Amazon store in Ealing has opened near the entrance to the Broadway Shopping Centre. The shop has no checkouts and allows you just to walk out of the door with the produce you pick up provided you are using the company’s smartphone app which will automatically bill you as you leave.

The shop is 2,500 sq foot, much smaller than a traditional supermarket.

The store mainly carries Amazon own brand items as well as stock from Morrisons and also provides a place to collect and return items bought online. It reportedly is being branded as Amazon Fresh rather than Amazon Go as was originally expected.

Unlike self-serve operated by other supermarkets, customers don’t need to scan individual items, as soon as they put it in their bag the artificial intelligence monitoring customers will charge them. Hundreds of cameras and sensors operate in the store using highly sophisticated software to track each shopper.

When you have completed your shop you can walk out the store with no obligation to check everything has been recorded by the system.

The system can distinguish between different bouquets of flowers or magazines and bill the customer accordingly.

Chiropractor Andrew Martin was one of the first customers this morning. He said, “I just heard about it and had to come down. I use Amazon a lot and it’s really intriguing idea. It’s so strange just to be able to walk out with goods. I just hope it doesn’t lead me to accidentally shoplift in other shops because I get so used to the money coming out automatically.”

Andrew Martin. Picture: LDRS

Teacher Sara Right added, “I live locally so it’s definitely convenient. It’s quite terrifying that it just knows what you’ve bought but it’s very easy so I think I’ll use it.”

Sara Right. Picture: LDRS

Business owner Mitch Granger said: “I don’t understand how the hell it knows what you’ve picked up. It’s magic. It feels like I’m in the future. Maybe all shops will be like this soon.”

There has been a mixed reaction from local traders with one saying, “If I could get away with paying as little tax as they do my life wouldn’t be such a struggle. I do worry about the concept catching on. A good proportion of trade is from people who work in the area and if we are moving towards stores with hardly any staff this is yet another blow to local retail. Only large companies with the resources to pay for this technology can run their business like this. Small independents will always have to have a full team of staff.”

Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch described it as a dystopian, total-surveillance shopping experience saying, "Amazon's intense tracking of shoppers will create larger personal data footprints than any other retailer. Customers deserve to know how and by whom these records and analytics could be used."

The company claims that data collected in-store will only be held for 30 days.

Written with contributions from Rachael Burford - Local Democracy Reporter

March 4, 2021