Just Walk Out: Here's how Amazon’s bold technology move is redefining the retail sector

One of the most interesting aspects of this topic is the paradox of our reality: Amazon, the company that literally revolutionised how people shop and transformed a big chunk of in-store shopping into e-commerce, has developed a fascinating technology to elevate retail sales.

The innovation, called Just Walk Out, is merging the advantages of the physical world with the capabilities of technology, which allows for a reduction in the wasted time in stores when people would stand in line for an hour (well, almost).

Of course, Amazon itself has physical stores and is the first one adopting the technology, but what interests us is how the latter works for developers, customers, and retailers, and how other stores globally adopt the technology.

Behind the Scenes

Implementing a checkout-free store is an immensely complex technical challenge. Despite the futuristic AI at play, Amazon’s checkout-free experiment revealed the importance of human support and global development behind the scenes. Reports emerged that Amazon quietly employed over 1,000 contractors in India to review store footage and verify the AI’s decisions, especially in the early days.

These workers essentially acted as remote quality analysts – a “human fallback” to confirm what the system thought each person took. This human-in-the-loop approach helped train the algorithms on tricky, edge-case scenarios (for example, distinguishing identical items or resolving when customers crowded together) and underscores that JWO wasn’t magically perfect out of the box.

To support development and deployment at this scale, Amazon’s engineering teams leverage a robust cloud infrastructure that enables testing JWO in different locales. They can spin up proxy environments that mimic stores in various regions, allowing developers to access localised versions of the system’s interface and data.

For example, an engineer in Seattle can test the U.K. version of a Just Walk Out store’s software via a proxy server, seeing the pound sterling pricing and local inventory as if they were on-site in London. In the same way, developers outside of the US can easily work on local projects as using a US proxy would easily allow them to change their IP into the US one, and test the software from the perspectives of a US-based customer or an employee.

This setup makes it possible to conduct A/B tests across geographic segments as Amazon might trial a new feature or UI tweak in stores in just one country and compare results against others before a global rollout. It also helps simulate retail behaviours unique to different markets (say, a rush of commuters in a Tokyo train station store) within US-based test labs.

In short, a centralised cloud platform with distributed proxy access would allow Amazon’s team to develop globally while deploying locally. This behind-the-scenes flexibility is crucial when rolling out a uniform technology like JWO to diverse store formats and cultures worldwide.

From Shoppers to Stores

Once implemented, Just Walk Out technology significantly alters the in-store experience and operations:

●      Seamless Customer Experience: Shoppers no longer pause to scan items or stand in line. The convenience is especially valued in airports and stadiums, where the rush to catch a flight or get back to the game is enormous. In general, by eliminating the checkout process, stores can reduce average shopping time dramatically. One report observed that removing checkout counters made foot traffic flow more fluidly and made the store feel more spacious and inviting.

●      Retail Staffing and Roles: A checkout-free model can significantly reduce the need for front-end staff. Traditional grocery stores might employ a dozen or more cashiers and baggers per shift; a JWO powered store can run with just a handful of employees on the floor. Amazon’s early vision for large Go supermarkets was to operate with as few as six to ten workers on duty, primarily to stock shelves, assist customers, and handle exceptions (like age verification for alcohol).

●      Data Privacy and Trust: The flip side of a sensor driven store is the surveillance concern it raises. To many privacy conscious consumers and regulators, a shop decked out with cameras tracking your every move sounds dystopian. Amazon has been careful to clarify what its system does and doesn’t do. Notably, JWO does not use facial recognition or record biometric identifiers like irises or fingerprints.

Adoption by Other Retailers Across the Globe

Challenges and strategic considerations are common across global efforts. First, high upfront costs are a barrier. Outfitting a store with JWO’s array of cameras, sensors, and computer systems is expensive, roughly an additional $1 million per store on average, according to various sources. Thus, today it’s mostly retail giants or well-funded pilots that can afford full automation.

Another challenge is loss prevention and error handling. A cashierless system must be bulletproof against shoplifting and honest mistakes alike. Traditional stores rely on employees to act as a last checkpoint; in an automated store, the technology itself must be extremely reliable or have fallback mechanisms.

Some third-party providers incorporate RFID tags on products as a secondary verification, or use AI that flags suspicious behaviour for a human to review (for instance, if someone covers an item with something to obscure it from cameras).

In terms of sales and store performance, it’s still early to judge the long-term impact of JWO style systems. However, initial indicators are promising. Amazon has hinted that its smaller JWO enabled stores see high repeat usage and faster customer throughput (which can boost sales during peak hours).

Third-party studies have found that reducing friction at checkout can increase average basket size and customer satisfaction. And importantly, despite the growth of e-commerce, the vast majority of retail spending still happens in physical stores – about 84-85% of sales are in bricks and mortar as of 2024.

Retail automation like Just Walk Out is one way traditional retailers aim to keep those in-store dollars flowing, by melding the ease of online shopping with the tangible immediacy of offline.