We reported that Amazon were likely to expand their Amazon Go stores to six new locations this year and now it appears that the first two to open will be based in Chicago and San Francisco.
Job postings on Amazon Jobs for Amazon store managers Chicago and San Francisco say that the responsibility will include creating a vibrant store culture based on customer obsession, trust, respect, continuous learning, and fun. Amazon are looking for experienced retailers with 5+ years of experience in a retail or customer-facing environment and 3+ years of experience leading teams which successful candidates will have to recruit.
Amazons ‘Just Walk Out Technology’ artificial intelligence engine automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you’re done shopping, you can just leave the store so employees won’t be recruited for the typical checkout jobs you’d expect in retail – they’ll be stocking shelves and assisting customers download and use the Amazon Go app which keeps track of purchases and bills customers.
With Amazon’s acquisition of WholeFoods it will be interesting to see if they roll out the Amazon Go technology to a more generalised retail environment at some point in the future rather that restrict it to what’s in essence a sandwich shop with some convenience foods.
The first Amazon Go store opened in Seattle in January this year.
