Since the beginning of 2024, there have been a series of announcements of the end of services related to domestic and international e-commerce sites.
Amazon has announced a significant reduction in the number of stores that have adopted the "Just Walk Out" service, which it had been widely promoting, in order to discontinue it.
"Just Walk Out" is a payment technology for cashierless stores that Amazon developed and promoted. It uses cameras and sensors installed in the store to recognize the movements of customers and the products they have picked up, and customers simply leave the store and receive a bill later to pay.
It has been introduced in some of Amazon's cashierless convenience stores "Amazon Go" and grocery stores "Amazon Fresh", and has also been sold to other companies. According to an Amazon press release, the company plans to introduce the smart shopping cart "Dash Cart" in conjunction with the significant reduction of "Just Walk Out".
However, "Just Walk Out" will not be completely discontinued, and it will continue to be used in convenience stores such as "Amazon Go", which are smaller than supermarkets, as well as in sports stadiums and university kiosks.
Some analysts point out that the decision to discontinue "Just Walk Out" was influenced by the fact that it was revealed that the service was ultimately deployed manually, with staff checking video footage rather than just using image recognition technology, and that roughly 1,000 people from India were checking payments. These issues surrounding cashierless stores have come to light, and that this was also a factor in the decision to significantly scale them down.
While there are calls these days for companies to promote digital transformation both domestically and internationally, it is important to remember that even global company Amazon has had failures like "Just Walk Out" in the implementation process.
