Amazon has revealed plans for a grocery shop without a checkout process, where customers will instead pay for the goods they have selected via an app. The Just Walk Out shopping experience uses the same types of technologies found in self-driving cars. The system detects when items are taken or returned to shelves and tracks them in a virtual shopping trolley. Once the shopper leaves the store, their Amazon account will be charged and receipt sent to them. The first shop is expected to open to the public in Seattle in the US in early 2017. "Grocery retail is a crowded sector, and customers have incredibly high expectations of the Amazon brand," said Natalie Berg, an analyst at Planet Retail. "If they're going to differentiate, they'll need to translate the fantastic customer experience that they have created online in a physical store setting. This is no easy feat. Removing the traditional checkout process does exactly that."
