Amazon Go marks a significant moment in retail as Amazon looks to push into the high-street. Hugh Fletcher, Global Head of Consultancy and Innovation, Salmon looks at how the cashier-less supermarket could change the retail landscape.
Technology continues to change the face of retail, and Amazon as a company is a driving force for this change. Although what Amazon does so well is harness what customers want (and don’t want) and harness technology to address these friction points. Its dedication to service has revolutionised the digitally-driven services landscape in retail.
The launch of Amazon Go, the futuristic convenience store, caters to shoppers’ craving for a friction-free, convenient and seamless experience, and officially takes the once online-only platform further into the high-street. It’s an interesting concept, and many have argued that Amazon is looking to partially reverse the increasing consumer trend to shop online.
However, the real aim is to use its customer-centric learnings from its online platform to improve physical shopping. Online shopping was first to disrupt the retail model as customers were given the option to purchase goods from the ease of their home. And Amazon Go may well be the next step in this experience.
As to whether it’s good for retail, it might shake up the already declining influence of bricks-and-mortar stores and prompt them into rethinking ways to innovate their store to suit the convenience of the customer. Conversely, this could spell further trouble for the big supermarkets whose shares had already slipped following Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods last year.
Amazon’s Go shop, and the most recently popular digital assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo, is designed with one thing in mind – to purposely navigate shoppers through certain platforms, cornering the market away from competitors. For example, Amazon’s Echo device directly connects shoppers at home to their vast online marketplace.
These new channels will become less intrusive and present an enormous opportunity for retailers to build a long-standing relationship with the customer. There is clearly an appetite to embrace these sorts of technologies, and only time will tell if Amazon has developed another market-changing concept.
By Hugh Fletcher
Global Head of Consultancy and Innovation
Salmon