Amazon To Bring Checkout-free Store To London: Report

Online retail giant, Amazon is looking for sites in London’s West End to launch its checkout-free store in the UK, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The online retailer would likely to open its brick and mortar store, Amazon Go, near Oxford Circus, the paper added.

Amazon, however, declined to comment.

The tech firm has forayed into physical stores in January this year with the first Go store opened on the ground floor of an Amazon building in its hometown Seattle.

The checkout-free store works using computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.

The technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. Shoppers can leave the store when they are done and Amazon will send a receipt and charge their Amazon account later.

Amazon spent four years building Amazon Go in secret, before launching an employee-only pilot on its Seattle campus in 2016. It now has seven stores across Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, mostly catering to workers in nearby offices looking for a quick lunch.

Last week, Reuters reported that Amazon is looking at bringing its checkout-free store format to airports.

Amazon officials discussed the store concept with authorities at Los Angeles International and San Jose International Airport, the agency said citing public records requests.

Amazon is studying how to get the checkout-free stores into airports and that an employee with experience in business development was assigned to the task, Reuters added quoting a source familiar with the strategy.