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Amazon is reportedly bringing a cashier-less Go store to London

Amazon is reportedly bringing a cashier-less Go store to London

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The first outside of the US

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Amazon is reportedly planning to bring its cashier-less Amazon Go retail stores to London, according to The Telegraph. The location would mark the first time Amazon has launched its Go concept outside of the US, where it currently operates seven retail locations. The company is reportedly looking for a retail space with a size of between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet near London’s Oxford Circus.

Although Amazon declined to comment on the rumor, previous reports have claimed that it wants to launch as many as 3,000 Amazon Go stores by 2021. However, despite opening its first physical store in Seattle back in 2016, the company has been slow to grow to other locations due to the cost and complexity of each store. The hardware alone for the original Amazon Go store in downtown Seattle is said to have cost the company $1 million.  

Although Amazon bought Whole Foods last year, its Amazon Go stores are a completely different retail experience that allow customers to shop without having to interact with either employees or kiosks. The stores use a series of sensors to work out what items people have put in their basket and automatically charge purchases to a user’s Amazon account when they leave the store. This level of automation is already making Amazon a serious threat to labor-intensive US incumbents like Walmart, but pretty soon, it could be causing just as much of a headache for competitors on the other side of the Atlantic.