Amazon has opened the doors on its third “grab-and-go” convenience store in Seattle.
The latest location of the company’s Amazon Go storefronts is housed at Boren Avenue North and Thomas Street, according to the Seattle Times. Measuring in at 2,100 square feet, it is the largest yet of Amazon’s cashier-free convenience stores.
The opening of the third Amazon Go location comes just over one week after the online retail giant opened a second location on August 27. That store is placed right in the heart of the downtown region of the ecommerce companys’s home city, inside the Madison Centre building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Marion Street. It is 1,450 square feet in size, just a bit smaller than the company’s original convenience store that opened in 2016, according to TechCrunch.
Amazon Go allows customers to take items off of the store shelves and simply walk out with them without visiting a checkout stand. The store is filled with cameras and sensors that can detect and record what a shopper picks up and takes with them. Once the customer walks out of the door with their bag of goodies, Amazon charges their account for the items.
In additional to standard convenience store items, the new location will offer ready-made meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as Amazon’s Meal Kits.
In May, Amazon confirmed it’s also looking to open Go stores in Chicago and San Francisco, though it declined to offer any specific dates. It has already secured a permit for the construction of what is believed to be a Go store in Chicago’s Loop district, while Union Square has reportedly been selected for the San Francisco site.
There have also been reports that the company wants to open as many as six Amazon Go stores in U.S. cities before the end of 2018.
The expansion to a third store is confirmation that the company is happy with the operation of its original checkout-less store, and suggests that its technology is functioning as it should. The original store saw extensive testing with Amazon employees before it opened to the public, and things didn’t always go as planned.
To shop at the high-tech store, customers only need to scan their Amazon Go app when they enter the premises. After that, it’s simply a case of choosing your items and popping them in your bag. The system can even track when you put a previously selected item back on the shelf, should you change your mind as you make your way around.
The interest in checkout-less stores is apparently spreading to other major companies, too. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Microsoft is developing similar technology and is in talks with Walmart about a possible partnership.
Updated on September 5, 2018: Added news that a third Amazon Go store is now open.
